


May's Crush: Final Frontier - Denouement

by MagmarFire



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Anime)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Continuation, F/F, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-06
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2019-09-12 16:06:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 30,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16875951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagmarFire/pseuds/MagmarFire
Summary: The continuation of May's Crush: Final Frontier by PikamasterADV, so read that first! After a tumultuous vacation, Ash and May find themselves in the middle of a conspiracy between Team Rocket and the Frontier Brains!? How can they get out of this one?





	1. 37: Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow! Part 2

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [May's Crush: Final Frontier](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/438147) by PikamasterADV. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hoo, boy, what have I gotten myself into...? I probably have some explaining to do before we begin.
> 
> You all remember May's Crush and its sequel Final Frontier from...oh, God, a decade ago, right? Yeah, let's not think about how much time has passed and instead think about how much good these stories did for the Advanceshipping community. Because they did absolutely inspire most of us to write something for it, I'm sure. I know it did for me.
> 
> But after a while, Final Frontier just stopped updating. Perhaps PikamasterADV had other plans, or maybe life just got in the way, or maybe he didn't think it was worth finishing after all. It's rather common for many stories, of course, but I couldn't just let this particular one end like this, not when it affected the community so profoundly-and me personally, in late high school.
> 
> So what's a grown adult with a little determination and perhaps a bit too much free time after the Twitch Pokémon Marathon to do? Why, reread both stories, take notes, make ending predictions, and then finish the dang thing, of course! And what you have just clicked is the fruit of my attempt.
> 
> Fair warning: This very well may not be the outcome that the original author intended, so I can only imagine that this will diverge in some way from his original vision. That said, most of what I have planned is stuff that can be supported through the material that he had already written, so it won't be a complete asspull. I also think that he's laid a very good foundation to finish the story in a satisfying way, so I hope you find my interpretation of the ending on par.
> 
> Without further ado, enjoy! (But make sure you're familiar with both May's Crush and Final Frontier beforehand, because there be spoilers ahead for those who haven't read it!)

 The gravity of that night thus far weighed heavily on Ash's heart as he re-entered the mysterious Battle Fortress once more. His mind raced with the same thoughts over and over again, and no matter how many times he revisited them, he could never completely wrap his head around it all.

The Team Rocket trio, whom he had not long ago consigned them to death, had miraculously survived Charizard's attack (again), and not only that, but they had also been teaming up with the friends he had been separated from for about a week. On top of that, Anabel had confessed her love to him, and it turned out that Scott wasn't the murderous moneygrubber he had been programmed to accept. Or so he claimed.

And most importantly...they were _alive_. His Pokémon, his best friend Pikachu, and the girl he loved—none of them had died after all.

In the course of a single night, his emotional range went from pure hatred and rage, to fear, to mirth, to happiness, to sorrow, to rage again, and then to understanding. Sliding across the entire spectrum of human emotion in only a few minutes' time was a peculiar sensation that he was not used to, but it was, he had to admit, a nice change of pace from the monotonous despair he had been feeling for days at a time.

That sensation had given him pause in his instinct to kill. Doubt welled up in him. He had questions that needed answers. And so, his clouded heart led him back to the Battle Fortress once more, to interrogate the man who had helped him seek revenge.

After dismounting his trusty Charizard and leaving him to kill time in the basement, he made his way to the main elevator and retraced his steps back to Evergreen's office. The path was simple enough, and it helped that the Fortress's layout was painfully rudimentary, each floor having a straightforward set of doorways, all of them clearly marked—the one claimed by Evergreen being the only one with a double door set.

The doors slid open easily, slamming when they hit the doorstops, and he stepped inside to greet a dimly-lit desk and the back of a large leather swivel chair.

"Evergreen, I'm back."

The chair spun to face him, and sitting in it was a towering, chiseled man comfortably leaning into his palm. His dark hair blended in with the shadows, tempting Ash to doubt whether or not he even had hair to begin with—but that he did, slicked with an expensive gel that sometimes was the only glimmer of light in the poorly-lit room.

"Ah, Ash," the man said, his lips curled into a slight frown. "You're back earlier than I expected. Why hasn't Anabel returned with you?"

"She had to stay behind. We found Scott's hideout. It was on Six Island, like you told us."

Evergreen's frown turned into a warm smile. "Good. And?"

"It's burned to ashes. Let's say he won't ruin people's lives ever again."

The older man laughed and got out of his chair. "Very good! Very good, indeed. You've done the right thing. Now no one else will have to suffer your kind of loss at his hand." He walked up to the tattered and singed Champion and placed a firm grip of assurance on his shoulder. "It's cathartic, isn't it, to see justice done?"

It wasn't. Not just because he thought it was overkill in retrospect, but also because May was actually alive. The warmth of her skin, the scent of her hair, the softness of her clothes, it was all real. There was no justice to serve—just an aborted assassination attempt and an unnecessary arson. Finding himself unable to own up, however, he silently nodded.

Evergreen ceased his firm grip on Ash's shoulder and practically skipped back to his chair, an apparent spring in his step that the Pallet Trainer had never had the opportunity to witness. It made him uncomfortable to see any semblance of the man's professionalism fall away like a silk veil, but just as soon as he landed into the plush leather seat, the giddy schoolboy image had dissipated. Ash's discomfort still remained.

"You made shorter work of Scott than I anticipated, so I think you deserve a long-awaited night of rest. Wouldn't you agree?"

Ash's stomach rumbled loudly, as was routine after what seemed like every fifteen-minute interval, and he missed having clean clothes and a warm shower—but he knew those luxuries would have to wait. "Sure," he began, "but before I turn in for the night, there's something that's been bothering me."

Ice jingled in Evergreen's glass as it pounded the mahogany coaster on his desk, its contents otherwise consumed completely. "Still having second thoughts about being judge, jury, and executioner?" he asked the tattered lad standing across from him. "Don't doubt yourself about that. It had to be done."

Ash's eyes narrowed. "Did it, though?"

Evergreen looked nonplussed, his eyes narrowing in kind. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, you were so sure that May and Pikachu were dead…"

Evergreen chuckled. "Surely you must be sleep deprived. You haven't forgotten the video already, have you? Those members of Team Rocket fired that rocket launcher and blew your beloved to smithereens!"

"But...did they, really?"

Evergreen's frown returned, his chuckle replaced by agitation. "Of course they did!" he answered with his voice raised far beyond what was really necessary in such close quarters. "You saw how they were unable to capture a simple Pikachu! Is it that hard to believe they couldn't handle that bazooka, either?"

And then it hit him. Ash knew something sounded fishy as soon as he heard the other side of the story, and now, like an interrogator grilling a suspect under a hot lamp, he raised his own voice to counter. "How did you know they were just trying to capture Pikachu? That video had no sound!"

That moment he saw that video was, after all, forever burned into Ash's mind, and he revisited it each and every day he trained from then on. It was the perfect fuel for his motivation—and there was no way he'd misremember a detail of a video that horrifying. A supposed outsider would have seen Jessie in the video attempt to grab May first and reasonably assumed the trio was attempting to kidnap them all. But singling out a simple Pikachu as the sole target?

Evergreen was silent, unless one were to count the stunned sputtering of one who just realized he had made a grave slip of the tongue. His eye twitched, and his mouth hung open as though his jaw were locked in place. And then, Ash cracked a genuine grin for what felt like the first time in weeks. He _got_ him.

"I saw May just now, and Pikachu, too. They're still alive."

Evergreen growled. "Impossible. How could anyone have survived an attack like that!?"

"If you don't believe me," Ash said with a smile, "then how do you explain this?" With a swift sleight of hand, he took all of the Poké Balls around his belt and released his party, five flashes of light brightening up the dank ambiance for a brief moment. The partners that he had once thought he lost in the explosion stood before the two, restraining themselves to celebrate their master's return to instead keep a close eye on the man cloaked in the shadows.

Evergreen's face said it all: Shock, dumbfoundedness, and—most of all—complete silence. Had Ash not known any better, he would have assumed that the man had choked on a piece of fruit and was paralyzed from fear.

"It's like you said," Ash continued. "May did have my Pokémon with her. And if she really were killed, then they would've been dead with her. But my Pokémon are alive and well right in front of you."

Evergreen closed his eyes, pensive. His growling from before turned into a low hum, and he rubbed his chin with one of his free hands. "So not only did you off the one who would surely take another life without your intervention, you discovered that everyone most important to you had survived the attack after all? What jubilation! I toast to your good fortune, sir."

He leaned forward and refilled his glass with a transparent, brownish liquid from a pitcher on his desk and then raised it, uttering a _sláinte_ before taking a sip. "I mean, this is cause for celebration, no? Scott's dead, and you have your loved one back, and your Pokémon, to boot. What more could you ask for?"

Ash took a step forward, taking care to not accidentally step on Totodile's tail. "Well, I never actually said I killed Scott."

Evergreen spit his drink on the floor and violently swiped away the excess dribble from his chin. " _What!?_ Scott's still alive!?"

"And that's not all," Ash continued. "I heard what he and my friends had to say, and what they said completely contradicts everything that you've told me."

Evergreen's eyes narrowed into a glare. "Oh? What did you hear?"

Where to begin! Ash regaled him at length about how he learned that the Team Rocket trio had apparently been fired conveniently _after_ he had blasted them off that final time; that May, Scott, and even Greta had unilaterally condemned what he was trying to accomplish; and that Greta accused his "Boss" of being "the real Rocket."

With all of Ash's report laid bare, the older man said nothing, or at least nothing substantial. He couldn't tell if he had simply no idea how to rebut what he said or if he was fighting every urge to strangle him to death. Regardless of what it was, however, nary a word passed his lips in objection, and that was about all Ash felt fit to hear.

"Evergreen," Ash pressed, his volume back to a reasonable level but as adamant as before, "just who are you, really?"

And then...laughter. A loud, guttural uproar of laughter blasted into the room, amplified by dark metal walls and the relative lack of decor. Evergreen's eyes were clamped shut, his shoulders were heaving, and Ash could have sworn that tears were welling up in his eyes. The noise pierced everyone else through the soul, and Cyndaquil shuddered with a squeak and took a few steps back, mitigated by a quick pat of reassurance from the Big Jaw Pokémon standing next to him.

"Absurd!" Evergreen finally said after a minute and taking a few second to gasp for air. "You'd doubt your convictions so easily? How daft are you to reject your feelings based on sheer hearsay?"

Ash didn't budge. "I guess I am dense. After all, you had me going long enough to almost turn Charizard against my friends."

Evergreen tisked, unforthcoming with a rebuttal once more.

"So answer my question, Evergreen. Who are you, really?"

The two stared at each other for what felt like minutes, the only movement that each could claim being the occasional twitch in their lips and the need to deeply breathe. Ash dared not take his eyes off the man behind the desk, not even for a moment, lest any sign of weakness gave him the excuse to dismiss the boy's accusation as just a side effect of recovering from a vivid fever dream.

Finally, though, Evergreen swiveled his chair away, and a few seconds later, he stood and walked around the desk to face the Trainer and his released Pokémon. His height was staggering, intimidating all but the aloof Sceptile crossing his arms and chewing on the twig in his mouth. But Ash and his Pokémon still stood their ground, albeit taking a wider stance as though the older man could knock them all away with a single kick.

To the confusion of them all, however, he was not ready to pounce but had, instead, started clapping.

"Bravo, Ash," Evergreen said, clapping slowly a few more times before eventually putting his hands into his pants pockets. "It's clear that bluffs at this point will have little effect on you anymore."

"Wait," Ash replied, raising an eyebrow, perplexed, "are you giving up?"

"Against a Trainer of merit such as yourself, what choice do I have?" He raised his hands as though he was being read his rights during arrest. "All your Pokémon are out and battle ready, while I'm here in a corner, completely unarmed. So, I suppose you've earned the satisfaction of figuring out this little puzzle."

"So you're confessing, then? Greta was telling the truth about you?"

"Just so," Evergreen finally admitted, but instead of wearing a frown like before, he cracked a grin brimming with confidence. "So I can finally drop this little charade. I am Giovanni, the leader of Team Rocket."

Just then, a memory from one of Ash's previous adventures flickered through his mind, and even more started to make sense. His jaw dropped when his mind made the connection, soon followed by an accusatory pointer finger. "I _knew_ you seemed familiar to me when I first saw you. You were the one who attacked me and my friends at Mount Quena a few years ago, weren't you?"

"Mount Quena? In Johto?" the boss asked, his face contorted with the look of bemusement. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

Ash then bit his tongue, remembering the promise he made to Mewtwo all those years ago. He feared Giovanni would press further or even read his mind and discern the artificial Pokémon's whereabouts, but fortunately, he apparently brushed the issue aside. And so Ash could finally exhale when the imposing man continued his monologue instead.

"But I can vouch for your friends' truthfulness, including that brat traitor Greta. Yes, I've been the benefactor for the Battle Frontier all this time. And those Team Rocket goons you dispatched so easily were under my orders."

"So that talk of you saying there being no benefactor? That Scott was the culprit to May's attempted murder? Everything was…?"

"All lies, yes. And you fell for them hook, line, and sinker."

The teenager growled in frustration but otherwise let Giovanni continue.

"Now, I assure you the explosion was far from what I had intended to happen to your beloved girlfriend, Ash. But you _so easily_ took the video and my word at face value that it was beyond trivial to recruit you for my cause and assassinate Scott. I couldn't have had an easier time if I had brainwashed you."

"But why?" Ash asked, something still not quite adding up. "What did Scott even do? You said he 'changed' and that you didn't know when he'd 'make his move' or whatever, but if that was all lies, then...why?"

"Well, I did tell the truth about one thing: We met once before, he and I. Not as friends, of course, but more like business partners. He practically crawled to me, begging for me to supply the resources he needed to get his unprofitable child fantasy off the ground."

"So the Battle Frontier isn't profitable after all, either?"

Giovanni chuckled. "Profitable? His revenue can barely cover the pens he needs for his accounting tables."

"So why go to all this effort to get him killed? What did he do to you?"

"It's simple, really. An informant of mine caught wind that he was planning to sabotage my work. So it was just a breach of contract violation that needed resolving, nothing more."

"And by 'informant,' I guess you mean Brandon, right?"

"You guess correctly. He kept me abreast of all goings-on in Kanto and the Sevii Islands where my Delibird could not, and he kept me well informed of Scott specifically. My services don't come cheap, and he requested a large loan on top of that. If I didn't make sure he was on top of repayment, then...well, that just wouldn't do, would it? Which brings me to the asking price…"

"Hiring the Frontier Brains to do your dirty work, you mean?"

"Oh, you make it sound so underhanded when you put it that way, but yes. Although I do lament Scott's hiring standards." Giovanni crossed his arms, almost as though he were pouting. "He has an eye for talent for Pokémon battling, without question, but the lot of them have absolutely horrid teamwork ethic. Some, even, like that eccentric tactician—Tucker, was it?—couldn't even procure the Ruby without making a scene and attempting to get you killed."

"So that was you, too, huh?"

"Like I said before, it was never my intention for you and your friends to come to harm. I even took the liberty of having Brandon intervene before he made everything worse."

Visions of the beams of light that had saved them on Mt. Ember earlier had returned to his memory. So that really was Brandon after all.

"I mean, sure, if...worse came to worst, we could've hidden your bodies for a while, but with Scott out and aware of what was happening, the secret wouldn't last for long. He would've reported it to the authorities, the force would've found us out, and then any hope of having a mesh of Team Rocket-owned Network Machines would have been dashed within the week."

"That's your end goal, then?" Ash asked. "That's why you had Celio's Network Machine destroyed: So you could see how it works and use the Ruby and Sapphire to build your own."

Giovanni smiled, genuinely impressed. "I must say, young man, you are impeccably on point today. Now, if I had known he would have been that much trouble, I would have never asked for that Tucker fellow to assist Anabel on that mission in the first place..." He turned to face the wall, finding the empty space in between apparently fascinating. "Speaking of Anabel...she's a special one."

Ash squinted, his suspicion growing. "What about Anabel?"

"'What about Anabel?'" Giovanni parroted, facing the younger Trainer with incredulity. "You should know by now her special gift, her ability that lets her know what people and Pokémon alike are thinking."

"Well, yeah," Ash responded, not quite sure where he was getting at with something so well known. "It's what makes her such a tough Trainer to beat."

"Mm, yes. She's a powerful one, that Anabel, but she has no ambition to speak of whatsoever. She'd rather use her ability to talk to flowers or snoop in on you while you dream and other such frivolities."

Ash flushed a deep red when that visual popped into his head. He somehow resisted the urge to cower behind his hands in the embarrassment of having his intimate dreams of May watched by someone else, but he couldn't dam the gates of his mouth pouring out strings of complete gibberish. Giovanni, on the other hand, found the boy's show of vulnerability amusing. He chuckled, prompting the other to flush such a deeper shade of red that he began to sweat profusely.

"The girl is like a termite. She would rather enjoy a simple life and submit herself to the whims of her primal urges, but she can't even fathom what sort of wonders she's capable of—were it not only for her inability to simply _step back_ a bit and observe the wonders she's made simply by living.

"But I am no termite like she is. Unlike her, I have observed her from afar and can see what she can do. And also unlike her, I _can_ fathom her power's true form, fathom what could be done when her limits are broken—and share that gift with others."

Ash gulped, afraid of where the line of discussion was going. "What do you mean?"

Giovanni smiled fiercely, and Ash's fear grew twofold. "Why don't I show you?" He reached into his pocket and pulled out what looked like a rebreather device. Then, after a loud _beep_ sounded from his sleeve, clouds of mist hissed from the air vents overhead.

The grayish gas quickly filled the room, and as soon as Ash accidentally caught a whiff of it, he immediately felt his limbs begin to fail him. His eyes grew heavy, his mind blanked, and he could do little but struggle against his impending fight against gravity before hitting the ground in a heap. His Pokémon didn't fare much better, all of them toppling over and out like lights in five seconds flat.

His head gained the density of lead, and his neck felt it was going to snap from supporting its weight. His arms shaking, struggling to keep his chest from touching the floor, he could utter only a few words before even his vocal chords ceased function. "What are...you doing..."

"You'll soon see, my friend."

Ash's arms gave way, the floor victorious. It wasn't long before his vision failed him, as well, darkness completely taking over and leaving only his hearing. He could hear footsteps approaching, the sound of his Pokémon being recalled, and a murmur of something like, "Bring me six of the devices, _now_." But soon, even his hearing began to fade, and the hissing from above softened to an inaudible level. In the end, all he could manage to hear was an imaginary soothing hum lulling him to sleep.

It was just as well, he thought. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to just rest his eyes a little bit…

* * *

Metallic footsteps echoed in the corridor as May and the remainder of her party made a second climb up the staircase. Greta and Anabel lagged behind for a moment to talk about this and that, but May was too focused on making sure she didn't make a false step and fall face first to really catch the gist of their short-lived conversation. Before long, all that remained was the hollow clanging of feet on metal as they climbed.

Besides that, no one uttered a word, save for Cyndi breaking the silence with a sneeze and Happiny giggling in amusement. The tension that followed thickened the air as though it were saltwater, and each successive step grew harder and harder to make. There was no snide remark from Meowth, no angry outburst from Jessie, nor even a resigned James to shrug in response to lighten the mood.

Never did May ever imagine that it would ever feel just so _empty_ without them there alongside her. A part of her even preferred them attempting to catch Pikachu again—because even then, she knew that it would only be a matter of time before she saw them again after their inevitable blastoff.

She sighed, realizing her difficulty in coming to grips with the fact that they had to make the difficult choice to leave them behind. Noticing her distress, Brock reached out from behind and gave her a quick squeeze on the shoulder. "Are you all right, May?" he asked her aloud, officially breaking the self-imposed moratorium on speech.

She briefly hummed a "yes" in reply but then regressed in laying bare her inner conflict once more, even almost laughing at herself mockingly for saying that she had actually _missed_ Team Rocket for once.

Brock laughed in agreement. "It's certainly not the same without them here, that's for sure."

May sighed again, her self-doubt resurfacing. "Brock, do you really think it'll all be okay?"

"Come on, May, of course it will. We've been in worse scraps than this. Remember that whole affair with Lucario in the Tree of Beginning?"

"Well, yeah, but...I dunno. For some reason, it just feels like the stakes are higher this time, you know?"

Brock took a moment to look behind to make sure Cyndi, Greta, and Anabel were still caught up before taking more steps up. "It is hard to shake that feeling, I agree. But everything will be all right. We'll see them again—whether we want to or not," he finished with a laugh, which May shared.

The group climbed for a few minutes before reaching the end, culminating in another large room. It was dark, with only a single light to speak of at the other end, which had to have spanned at least a hundred meters before reaching another large dark blue wall. Just like the battlefield before it, it, too, had a large metal door, securely shut.

May, being the vanguard of the group, was the first to take a step on the soft earth. As soon as her foot touched the ground, the sound of a large array of spotlights turning on filled the room and startling everyone. There was no space allocated for spectators, just like before, and instead, there was a large empty space with white markings on the ground indicating the boundaries of the field of play, as well as the designated spaces for the opposing Trainers themselves.

A loud metallic groaning sounded from the other end of the arena as the door slowly rose. May gulped loudly, bracing herself in anticipation as she saw a lone shadowy figure limp out into the light, the door closing behind her. The figure sported dark tattered pants and a yellow diamond-pattern belt, thin and tall. Its height was aggrandized by a pair of scuffed, purple heels. The form was alluring, sporting a midriff and long yet seemingly-unkempt black hair. The figure's face was twisted in rage and pain, its teeth clenched and hands balled into fists as it stomped over to the designated space across from them.

May gasped when she recognized it, and Brock soon followed with a growl filled with betrayal and pain of his own.

"Lucy, it's you…"

A tear rolled down Lucy's face when she locked onto Brock's eyes, her face relaxing a bit. "Brock...you have returned."

May stepped forward. "What are you doing here? The last time we saw you, you—"

"Got blasted off like your Team Rocket minions?" Lucy interrupted scornfully. "You're not dreaming; I lived. Surely _you_ of all people know how likely surviving a massive explosion is, yeah?" May raised her finger to object but immediately bit her tongue when she realized that the older woman kind of had a point...

"Oish!" Greta interjected, standing root at May's side. "Don't you think you've done enough? What do you think you're doing standing there?"

"Isn't it obvious? I'm your next opponent in this little gauntlet."

May stared at the woman, stunned at her determination. "In this state!? You can barely walk!"

"Your concern is appreciated," Lucy growled, "but my Pokémon are all I need. Watch." She tossed a Poké Ball forward, a bright flash of light revealing her Milotic—still bruised and scorched from their last encounter but still formidable, nevertheless. Like her Trainer, she glared at her opposition with the same crazed expression. May shuddered and closed her eyes in fear for a few moments before steeling herself again.

"So, which among you will offer yourself as a sacrifice to the Pike Queen?" She faced Greta and Anabel and pointed. "Why not you traitors?"

Done with fighting off accusations, Greta rolled up her sleeves and stomped her foot aggressively. "Yeah, yeah, we'll bash your heads in, if that's what you want! _Bring it!_ "

That was when Brock stepped up to her and held her back with a firm grip. "No. I'll do it. I'll face Lucy again."

All Brains within earshot gaped at him, and his suggestion did also elicit quite a negative reaction from the others, and May in particular. "Not you, Brock!" she cried. "It was hard enough leaving Team Rocket behind, but now I have to leave my big brother behind, too!?"

Pikachu joined to support May, jumping on her shoulder in the loudest coherent objection he could make.

"I have to agree with May on this one!" said Greta, yanking her hand away from Brock's grip. "Maybe I'm just biased and _really_ just want to give her what for by myself, but that's insane."

Brock's solemn, firm expression remained. "Maybe so, under different circumstances," he replied, "but I don't know this place like you guys do, so May will need all the brainpower she can get to navigate it. And besides…" His tough look then melted into a wry smile. "Heh, we're only as strong as our weakest link in this place, and let's be honest here. I'm no Frontier Brain."

"But—!"

Brock raised his hand to silence the Petalburg girl. "If you want to reach Ash, you'll need backup. And I mean _strong_ backup. You understand, right?"

She cursed under her breath, fighting back tears once more. She knew he was right, but she would never admit it. In the Battle Fortress, it was the optimal strategy: The doors didn't discriminate based on how strong or weak the challengers were. If a battle was being fought, be it a competition or a curbstomp, they would open without hesitation. So it only made logical sense to weed out the weakest first and leave the strongest for the final battle.

"Don't worry, May. I'll be fine, I promise. Given how she looks, I think I could really give her a run for her money, even."

May didn't have the will to argue with such conviction, not when she had to muster all the strength she could just to prevent herself from crying and to look brave for everyone. Judging by how the others were taking it, it didn't look like Anabel and Greta were going to argue much more against it, either. Greta still scowled, but she agreed with Brock's calculus and stepped away to give the former Pewter City Gym Leader some space.

He faced her, ignoring the irrational pitter-patter of his heart racing at the sight of his opponent. Lucy, on the other hand, had less restraint and had instead resorted to avoiding eye contact completely.

"Y-You're a horrible man, forcing me to fight you again. Do you enjoy watching me suffer!?"

Brock frowned. "You made the choice to suffer on your own. I have nothing more to say to you." He reached for his belt and chucked a Poké Ball of his own. "Go for it, Steelix!" There was another flash of light, and a large iron snake materialized in front of them, a metallic roar filling the vast stadium. "Use Dig!"

Dirt and stones were expelled into the air as Steelix obediently dove into the soil. Before he could make a second command, though, he turned to May. "Now go! The door's opening!"

Sure enough, a rumble besides the tremors caused by Steelix's attack could be felt coming from the other end of the room. The door slowly rose, and after a few seconds, it was completely open. And that was when May knew the countdown had begun.

Greta and Anabel had already made a beeline for the exit and were halfway across the field before May realized she had been paralyzed from guilt. She knew she had to move quickly before the doors closed permanently, but her legs wouldn't budge, and she couldn't even look away from the battle unfolding.

"Milotic, wait for it to resurface, and then use Water Pulse!"

The epicenter of quakes from Steelix moved closer and closer to the Tender Pokémon until it finally shot out from the ground, barely grazing it. Then, as commanded, Milotic charged up a wave of water and shot it out at the vulnerable snake. It was significantly less lucky than its aquatic counterpart, as it took the shot head-on.

Another roar filled the stadium—this time, from pain. May flinched at the sight, and yet she still just _couldn't look away_. That is, until she felt her hand jerk away and pulled her to the side. The impulse was enough to get her to look, and she found that it was Anabel, of all people, who ran back to fetch her.

She snapped out of her trance and followed the Brain as fast as her legs could carry her—until she realized something.

"W-wait! Not yet!" She looked behind her to find Cyndi standing next to Brock. "Cyndi, come on! We need to go!"

The blue-haired girl shook her head furiously. "No way! I want to see him kick this bitch's ass after what she did to me in that cave!" Happiny chirped in agreement.

May didn't have a chance to voice a response before she felt her hand get yanked again. Instead, all she could do was look back and scream, "You two better be careful, you got that!?"

A few seconds later, May and Anabel had caught up with Greta and bolted over the threshold of the door. May looked behind her again to get one last look at Brock and Cyndi before she and they were separated. The young girl was very into watching the battle play out, but both she and Brock did manage to find a quick moment to watch the trio exit the room and sadly wave them off.

May raised her hand to wave them goodbye in turn, but then the door immediately slammed downward, completely cutting them off from the room behind them. None of them could hear any sound or feel any shockwaves from the fiercely-fighting Pokémon. It was almost as though they found themselves in a different world, without any means of contact whatsoever with the outside realm.

And, once more, May felt an overwhelming rush of loneliness. She fell to her knees and let a couple of tears flow, trying her best not to sob. Pikachu cooed in her ear to soothe her, which helped a little bit, but her guilt still remained unassuaged.

"Not again…" she whispered to no one in particular. "I still can't believe they'd make us do this to each other."

"It is what it is," Greta huffed, crossing her arms. "It's awful, but it's the only way forward."

Anabel offered her hand to May to lift her up, which she accepted hesitantly. While she felt she could trust the other two girls there with her, she still had to admit that she wasn't as comfortable with them as she was with the others. It was probably to be expected, given that she traveled with Brock and got hounded by Team Rocket for literal years before. With Anabel and Greta, on the other hand...well, the black eye on the latter's face spoke for itself.

The feeling of being trapped in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar people weighed hard on her mind, making an especially significant tribulation even more trying.

The three waited a few moments for their eyes to adjust to the dim lighting before silently climbing the third staircase that stood in their way. The only thing staving off May's claustrophobia was the promise that she would see her friends again and the determination that she would save the boy she loved. It was a thin thread that anchored her, but it tugged her along and lifted her lead-plated feet all the same.

And so she and the others continued to climb—with both hope of what was to come, and also dread of what they still had to face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's that for Chapter 37. What do you think so far? This chapter was originally going to be longer, but I didn't want this to balloon into an epic so fast.
> 
> So, then, what's next? Well, since this chapter is done, I should probably get started on the next one. I don't expect the next one to be quite as long, but with me...you never really know.
> 
> As for an update schedule, though? That's tricky. Expecting a strict estimate from a full-time software engineer is kind of like expecting a cat to be able to roll over on command. That's not even mentioning the fact that Super Smash Bros. Ultimate comes out this Friday. Helix help me.
> 
> But I will try to make the next update as timely as possible! If I'm on the ball? Maybe two weeks. So let's try that.
> 
> Anyway, I better get back to procrastin-I mean writing. Until next time, as PikamasterADV would say, get Pokémon! ...Or at least you should've gotten Pokémon. It was Community Weekend in Pokémon Go recently, and there were SHINIES FOR DAYS


	2. 38: Throwing Down the Gauntlet!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we are once more! Thanks much to everyone who's giving this continuation a chance. Your kind words are much appreciated!
> 
> Now, without further ado, let's continue to Chapter 38. And no, I most certainly was not distracted by Super Smash Bros. Ultimate while writing this, no worries!

It had been a few minutes since the door closed behind them, and it was only a couple since they resumed their climb after the initial blindness from the bright lights had faded. None of the girls uttered a word to each other, and the anticipation of the next opponent pressurized the air so much it made the awkward tension between them even worse.

May still was having difficulty gathering up the courage to break the silence. The extreme guilt she felt for unloading all those sucker punches onto Greta over a day before had refused to leave her, and revisiting that memory and the thought of apologizing for it out of the blue brought her close to hyperventilating more than once. Pikachu, sensing the distress from his caretaker, tried to calm her down however he could, although there was admittedly little he could really do in such an uninviting place.

Greta, on the other hand, had more or less moved on. She had way worse beatings than that while training, she recalled. She could still feel the soreness, and she was pretty sure one of May's punches had given her a concussion, but it was nothing she wasn't used to. Yet, for some reason, she could feel the awkward energy coming from her troubled form, and that made her more than a little uncomfortable herself.

Though, unlike May, who was closer to perhaps being on the verge of a panic attack, she herself was more antsy. She growled, no longer able to stay quiet, and vented to disperse the choking, unpleasant air. "Aaaaagh, whose idea was it to make a stupid place like this, anyway!?" Her booming voice echoed hollowly up the staircase, which made it clear that they still had quite a ways to go.

"It wasn't Scott's idea," Anabel answered matter-of-factly. Her voice had no trace of any of the tension that had plagued the other two, even despite the fact that she was very easily able to sense their feelings directly. "My guess is that it was Evergreen who had masterminded the Battle Fortress's design."

"You mean he spent all this money on this huge, advanced building with motion sensors and tech that knows when Pokémon are battling, yet he was too cheap to install a freakin' _elevator_?" Greta retorted in a huff. After a second, though, she sighed in resignation, her stress relieved for the moment. "I mean, I guess it's a good cardio workout and all, but still…"

The Brains' banter had continued like this for a while, but it was only the pair who had the courage to speak. There were times May had felt a desire to weigh in and be at least somewhat sociable, granted, but cold feet stilled her tongue. A voice in the back of her head taunted her, all but convincing her that she had no right to fraternize with those she had been antagonistic towards so recently. So, after a few minutes of watching them quip back and forth and enjoy each other's company, she gave up trying.

Anabel broke eye contact with Greta for a moment to notice that May _had_ been unusually quiet for the past few minutes, however. "May, are you all right?" she said, her eyes softening in concern.

The girl in green broke out of her spell and panickedly shook her hands. "O-Of course! Just peachy!"

Anabel frowned disapprovingly. "You know I can tell what you're feeling, right?"

The sudden realization made her stumble forward, just barely catching herself with the handrail. Pikachu also barely caught onto her shoulder in time and averted what would have been a painful spill onto the cold metal steps. "Did you just read my mind without my permission!?" she asked in a flustered, exasperated tone and clutching her heart.

"Oh, no," Anabel responded with a laugh. "Your reaction just now made it obvious."

May sighed, not even bothering to put up the façade anymore. Anabel continued to giggle at May's expense and playfully patted her on the back in whatever camaraderie she could display, given the circumstances. However, when May didn't reciprocate, she stopped and lowered her hand hesitantly. "You're not okay, are you?"

She shook her head. She went on to lay bare her feelings to the other two, her voice raspy and slow. Her guilt welled up when she explained her actions from before and when she admitted she still wasn't completely at ease in their presence.

"So you don't trust us?" Greta asked her—not really in a negative or shocked tone or anything that signaled offense.

May hesitated for a moment before answering. Deep down, she still had some doubts, and yet she answered in the negative. Perhaps it was against her best judgment, knowing how many times they've seemingly gone through a revolving door of allying and betraying her, not to mention how quickly. Nevertheless, she saw their most recent actions and intentions, and so her moral fiber wouldn't allow her to turn her back on them, either.

"I can't really blame you if you didn't, honestly," said Greta pensively. "We did do some pretty bad stuff to Ash, after all. Plus, there was the whole helping-Team-Rocket-take-over-the-Sevii-Islands thing…"

"You know, Greta," Anabel interjected with a smile, "you've been strangely introspective and thoughtful of other people's feelings in the past couple days, haven't you?"

The blonde blushed and crossed her arms with a frown. "Oh, cork it, Annie."

The pair laughed for a couple seconds, and even May couldn't help but chip in a giggle or two their way, as well.

"So…" May started, still having difficulties putting an actual word in edgewise. "Are we cool?"

The others nodded with smiles of their own, and so she took a deep breath and let out some of the emotional exhaustion out of her lungs. Her breath still ran fast from the constant climbing, but she was more at peace, for now. At least for a moment, she could at last feel a small weight lift from her shoulders.

Of course, it was also, literally, a small weight: With a sudden twitch of his ears, Pikachu had jumped off May's shoulder and run ahead up the stairs. May, surprised, called his name, but as was typical of the electric mouse, he didn't stop for anyone. Then it was clear to her.

They were there.

The doorway leading to the next room itself was identical to every other one they'd encountered; it was just a rectangular opening and had nothing particularly special or eyecatching about it. Beyond that was a battlefield also practically indistinguishable from the last two. It was a style of design that had, at that point, grown stale and almost sterile and devoid of any care or attention to detail. It was a by-the-books, default, neutral field—utterly boring to anyone without a trained appreciation for the art of battling itself.

Perhaps it was for the best, then, that none of the stadiums were equipped with any spectator seating that gave people a false impression, May thought to herself dryly.

The group followed Pikachu down the field until he suddenly braked. Dust settled behind him as he slid to a halt, his cheeks angrily sparking with electricity. Up ahead, another light illuminating the opposite door—May's goal—had caught their eye, as well as a couple more shadowy figures standing in the opposing Trainer space.

Another loud noise nearly startled May out of her skin as the stadium lights turned on, but her feet somehow managed to disobey the rest of her body's instinct to dash back through the door she came from. She couldn't run, not when she was so close to the end. And so the next opponents' forms were revealed to her without delay in the white light.

It was Pyramid King Brandon and Dome Ace Tucker.

Pikachu was undeterred from the sudden change in lighting and hardly even seemed to notice the girls that walked up and stood at his side. He clawed at the loose soil beneath their feet, threatening to pounce at the slightest twitch of movement. Neither Tucker nor Brandon took the sabre rattling as any real threat, however, and simply ignored the yellow mouse.

"So, you've finally arrived," Tucker called out to the girls. "I, personally, was expecting you here sooner, but far be it for me to complain about the extra prep time."

May and Anabel were especially surprised to, once again, see Tucker face off against them. Sure, he had a few scratches and bumps on his face here and there from their last scuffle, but his attire was as pristine and flashy as it always was. Besides those, he was clearly in a better condition physically and mentally than the Pike Queen before them.

The only one among them who didn't have any visibly shocked reaction was Greta, who had instead crossed her arms and growled. "You don't know when to quit, do you?" she grumbled, her voice dripping with acid.

Tucker laughed in a shrill voice. "Upset that you didn't expect me to take advantage of your mercy back at the Dotted Hole? This is war, sweetheart."

" _War_?" Greta snapped back, the frustration in her voice made manifest. "It's _perfidy_ , that's what it is!"

Tucker, unrepentant at angering the other Brain so, simply raised his hands halfheartedly. "Call it whatever you want. Doesn't change the fact that they're just the words of someone too stubborn to admit she found herself outstrategized."

May speechlessly gaped at the golden-haired Brain. She vividly recalled Greta quickly apprehending him with a swift kick to the feet and giving the rest of them an opportunity to pass through. It was not only expertly done, but it was also a pleasant surprise; she had doubt that the Arena Tycoon would have even wanted to ally herself with her and her friends after everything that had happened prior. Yet, she still did it, and since then, despite still feeling discomfort around her, May could never seriously question her allegiances.

However, even this she found a little odd. Tucker _was_ nowhere to be seen after Greta had rescued the group from the cave in, that much she remembered, and now that she thought about it, she never did hear her mention what she did with him… What really happened back there?

Greta clenched her fists so hard that May was afraid that they would bleed, and fire erupted from her eyes. May, hoping to at least distract her from charging up to the man and decking him herself, lightly put a hand on her shoulder to get her attention. "Greta? What's he talking about?"

Her rage had evaporated, if only for a moment. She took a deep breath and stared at her feet, still glaring. "I kinda let him go after he promised he'd return to Kanto." Before anyone had a chance to respond, her palm quickly flew toward her head, and a loud _smack_ echoed in the stadium. "Yeah, I'm an idiot, I know! But I couldn't just _kill_ him, so I thought maybe I could convince him. And then that earthquake happened, and you guys were trapped inside, and I had no time to hold him to the deal, so I had to drop him and go off to help you, and _AAAGH, it's so frustrating!_ "

Her rage had returned; she grabbed a fistful of hair and pulled, hard. Anabel intervened as quickly as she could, constricting her arms with a tight hug to keep her hands from claiming more strands than they already had. "Greta, it'll be okay!" she assured her. "I know I wasn't there, but I know you did the best you could. Just please calm down!"

The gambit seemed to have worked, at least from May's point of view. Greta loosened her grip on her hair and let her arms rest in Anabel's embrace. Her face, while still glaring, had softened slightly and grew such a nice shade of red that she desperately hoped the lavender-haired girl wouldn't notice. Whether she actually did or not was anyone's guess, and it didn't much matter when Tucker opened his mouth to lob another taunt her way.

"Perhaps it's too much to expect the one who hands out _Guts Symbols_ to depend on anything but her gut. You'd do some good to get that muscle in your head some stretching, you know."

Greta struggled against Anabel's grip with a renewed vigor, her rage reflaring in a blaze. Anabel struggled harder, though, and somehow managed to keep her from breaking free and starting an impromptu brawl. After a few seconds of fruitless squirming, she relaxed her muscles once more—before looking up to face the Dome Ace and spitting, " _You're despicable._ "

To this Tucker simply shrugged. "Well, what are you gonna do about it, hm? Are you going to throw a tantrum, or do you want to settle this _as adults_?"

Greta, growling loudly, freed her hand from Anabel's grip and reached for her belt. She grabbed one of her Poke Balls and let it fly free. "You're up, Medicham!" she bellowed. A beam of light flashed from the flying ball and revealed the red-and-gray form of her Meditate Pokémon, who, sensing from its Trainer the insatiable desire to inflict agony, took a focused stance in opposition to the two men standing before them.

"So the latter, then?" Tucker replied with a devilish grin. "Now you're speaking my language!" He tossed a ball of his own into the ring, and in another flash of light, a large, radiant canine appeared and faced Greta's Medicham head-on, snarling.

Anabel let go when she was sure that Greta wasn't going to jump in and join the melee herself. It was probably for the best, too, as her relatively-undeveloped arms were holding the grip for so long that she feared they'd have snapped.

While massaging her wrists, she glanced over to the other side of the field and realized that Brandon had not said a word since they reached that floor. His face had been locked into the perennial scowl that more-or-less defined him, but nothing in his emotions or body language indicated that he was even all that interested in fighting to begin with. Instead, he had his arms crossed and glaring eyes closed, almost as though he had been listening to music in his ear the entire time.

"Brandon," Anabel called, which immediately startled the Pyramid King. "So what are you doing here? Do you intend to let everyone know what Evergreen put you up to?"

It didn't take long for him to, quite predictably, respond with, " _Noooooooooo!_ " Even so, the sound was like nails on a chalkboard, and it took all her might to keep herself from cringing. Greta had less restraint, rolling her eyes and muttering irritably to herself. ("Oish, could you maybe chew gum instead of the scenery for once in your life?")

"There's little need for discussion, and little time. Evergreen's orders were to put the traitors in line after they arrived, and I dragged along the lowest-ranked mook I could get my hands on to help out."

Tucker's eye twitched. "Don't think me as just mere help!" he grumbled angrily.

Brandon's patience had worn thin. "Bite your tongue," he lashed, with such a threatening aura emanating from him that he might as well have silently appended, _or else._ Tucker got the ultimatum loud and clear, albeit not without a lack of protest. He turned away from his partner, huffing and tapping his foot in annoyance—but besides that, he didn't dare utter another word.

Then May, who had herself been unusually silent, decided to speak up. Curious, she asked Brandon in the firmest voice she could despite her fear and nerves, "Tell us. What did have you been doing for this 'Evergreen'?"

"None of your business."

Well, so much for that, she thought to herself. Whether he was unwilling to divulge due to orders or simply because he didn't want to, she couldn't tell. But even so, why? There was nothing he would be able to withhold from the public for long, what with the inevitability of the Brains' disappearance and Team Rocket's actions in the Sevii Islands becoming common knowledge, so why the reticence then and there?

May took the time before the sparks would start flying to ponder it, but she couldn't divine much. Maybe it was like Lucy; perhaps he wanted to keep it secret because he felt like it _had to be_ kept secret. It was easy to see why for the former; she wanted to preserve her reputation, and at any cost. However, the latter didn't seem to care much for reputation, only archaeology and ruins. So what could it have been?

By then, it was clear that Brandon would not be the one to play the town herald. If she wanted to get to the bottom of everything, "Evergreen" was the only person who could provide answers—and so May's sights were set for the door at the opposite end of the room.

Anabel sensed May's intent to book it past everyone and climb the next staircase, and put her hand on her shoulder in support. "Go," she whispered in her ear. "This is the last floor before you reach the top. You'll see Ash again soon, I promise. Greta and I will make sure your path to the door is clear, but after that, you'll be on your own, I'm afraid."

May nodded, understanding the situation all too well; she knew that, like all the other floors before them, she would have to leave them behind. This time, though, there was nothing holding her back. Mouthing a silent, "Thank you," she took off with all the speed her legs could handle, sprinting the fastest she'd ever have in her life. Pikachu, noting that his caretaker was still defenseless, broke his glare directed at the male Brains and followed closely behind her.

Unfortunately, but probably expectedly, the sudden movement prompted Brandon and Tucker's attention to immediately shift to the girl. Tucker, enraged, ordered his Arcanine to attack her with a Flamethrower.

Brandon followed suit: "Regice, I need your assistance!" May could see light flash behind her and the shrill sound of one of the legendary titans materializing—but even so, she kept running, even as Arcanine began inhaling for its attack.

"Regice, stop her in her tracks with Ice Beam!"

May shivered, knowing that any second, she would be immolated and then frozen in short order. Her breath quickened, her heartbeat got faster, sweat was dripping from her forehead, and visions of her past flicked in and out of existence. So she ran faster.

Soon, however, she panicked when she noticed the door still was not opening. Before long, she would have nowhere left to run, and she would be chased relentlessly until she succumbed to exhaustion...or worse. But she kept running anyway.

Eventually, she did reach the door, which was still closed tight and refused to budge. She banged her fists on the cold steel, crying in frustration when nothing happened. In the corner of her eye, she could see that the light before had not dissipated, and she could feel the simultaneous heat and cold headed straight for her back.

_It's official_ , she thought. _I'm doomed._

She closed her eyes, expecting the blast of fire and ice to hit her any second. It was so hot and so cold… She would burn alive, and her well-done corpse would be preserved in an icy morgue for eternity. She clenched her teeth and hoped that it would at least be painless…

Except nothing happened. The heat and cold mix equalized to room temperature rather quickly, and no attack ever came. She opened her eyes and built the courage to look behind her. When she did, she was relieved to see that a wall of light had been erected between her and her attackers. Farther off in the distance, she saw Anabel's Espeon standing roughly where she was just a few moments earlier.

It didn't take much for May to put two and two together.

Satisfied with the quick interception with Light Screen, Anabel glared at the two men standing opposite her and Greta. "I can't believe you!" she shouted. "Attacking an unarmed challenger directly? Are those the orders Evergreen told you to follow!?"

"What, do you expect us to let her go and spill the beans on everything when she finds out about what we've been doing?" Tucker retorted.

"Tucker's right, for once," Brandon sneered, to which Tucker scoffed and rolled his eyes. "We're in damage control mode right now, and that means filling in any crack from where leaks can happen. To put it bluntly, she's seen too much. You want the Battle Frontier to survive this, don't you?"

"Not if it gives you the mandate to attack people without provocation or warning! There are rules to follow, you know!"

"Rules?" Brandon asked with a scoff. "Have you ever stopped to wonder why the Battle Fortress was designed the way it was in the first place? Do you think it was just to provide a simple gimmick to keep things fresh and interesting and exciting for the crowds and give a challenge to only the best?"

He shook his head in disdain when all he got from both girl Brains was blank stares. "No. There's one reason why someone would be possessed to architect something so twisted, and one reason only: So that no one can possibly win."

May, who had just started coming down from her adrenaline high and near-death experience, had difficulty following. Fortunately, Anabel took initiative to probe further, as though she had difficulty processing it herself. "What do you mean? Are you saying that the only reason the Battle Fortress exists is so it can be an unbeatable facility?"

"That's _exactly_ what I mean. From there, it's clear that the concept of 'rules' is meaningless in an unwinnable game."

"But _why_? _Why_ create something so impossible to win?"

"And that," Brandon said, motioning Regice to switch its aggro to the Sun Pokémon, "is, again, none of anyone's business."

Then, Greta had had enough. "Oish! We're getting nowhere with these people! Annie, we need to shut up and fight!"

It frustrated her, but she agreed; the only way forward for anyone was to get that door open. So there was only one thing she could do. _Espeon, use Psychic on Arcanine!_

As soon as the wave of energy enveloped the bulking quadruped, it was clear the real battle had begun. The building's sensors agreed, as a loud grinding sound made its way into May's ears from behind. The door had begun to open!

"C'mon, Pikachu!" she commanded the electric mouse. After he said a "Pika!" in acknowledgement, the pair hurried into the darkened stairway, and not long after they had crawled through the threshold, the door slammed shut behind them.

Like before, they could hear no sounds or feel any rumbles from the fight that had started. There was no way to tell if Anabel and Greta were going to be fine, or really any way to see how they were doing. For all she knew, they would share the same fate that she herself almost faced, and there would be no way to know until it was too late.

Worse still, while leaving them behind did leave a pain in her heart, she found it more alarming just how much _easier_ doing so was actually becoming. The thoughts of reuniting with Ash and clearing up all answers by talking to the mastermind himself had preoccupied her completely, and guilt and doubt soon replaced her feelings of sadness. Was this the right thing to do? Was she selfish for so easily discarding them when it was convenient to do so?

Pikachu, ever so observant to her caretaker's feelings of late, hopped onto her shoulder and tried to comfort her however he could. He cooed in her ear, as if to say, _This is the only way. Don't worry about them; they can hold their own just fine._

May sighed, still doubtful. "Pikachu, what would Ash do in this situation?"

Pikachu took a moment to think before responding. He started slow and contemplative before quickening the pace of his speech. She couldn't be sure, but she thought he said something along the lines of, _Well, probably the same as you. He never gives up on his friends or Pokémon. When I was gravely injured when we first met, he did all he could to protect me from that flock of Spearow and deliver me to Viridian City to get healed._

May had already heard that story a few times offhand in the past, but it was still a welcome one to think about in such an oppressive environment.

_Like you, I know he would have refused to leave anyone behind,_ Pikachu "continued," _but he knew that if it was the only way, he would go to any lengths to help his friends. Ash has rubbed off on you after all this time; I know you're only doing what he would have done. So please, don't feel discouraged. I'm here with you._

Maybe it was just her projecting onto someone else or putting words in his mouth, but regardless of whether or not that was what he was actually saying, it helped her at least a little. At that point, while she had left everyone behind, she would never be truly alone. Ash was never far from where Pikachu was, and that sense of proximity was quite comforting—even more so now that she still had someone to talk to in order to get her mind off of her anxiety for the next few moments.

She smiled, her drive to climb reinvigorated. "Thank you, Pikachu. I think I'm ready now."

Pikachu gave her a "pika!" in approval and held on tight to her shoulder as she began her final climb. Every step she took, however, despite the newfound will to reach the top, she felt her legs shake more and more before she had to use the handrails to keep her balance. The pressure in the air didn't let up any since she got there—an oddity, considering how high up she must've been by then—and so her breathing quickened to stave off the lightheadedness.

She was thirsty and hungry, and she could hardly wait to have another scalding shower when she was reunited with everyone. It amused her to think that perhaps the promise of food and drink gave her as much motivation as the thought of seeing Ash again did, but she didn't want to think of much else beyond that; for once, she found her happy medium of appreciating the situation's gravity and feeling confident that everything would be okay after all.

The pair continued up the stairs for a few minutes, not saying much to each other after the pep talk earlier. Pikachu's gaze shifted from wall to wall and step to step, absorbing as much as he could of the admittedly-uninteresting architecture in case anything was out of place—like a deathtrap hiding in the shadows, perhaps. May, on the other hand, kept her focus on the next few steps that she could actually see in the dim light, taking care to not trip a third time.

Soon enough, however, Pikachu's ears twitched, and he once again jumped off May's shoulder to run off ahead. They were getting close.

May picked up her pace, her nerves causing every part of her body to shake profusely. After tripping a sixth time, she ended up scraping her knee, but she ignored the pain and got back up to continue her jog up the stairs. Before long, she reached the doorway and saw a room quite unlike the others before it.

While it was spacious and had clear standard battlefield markings like the others, it had more of the vibes of a laboratory more than anything else. There were no bright lights that flipped on like before, so the room remained lit only by the glow of monitors that dotted the walls and a large projector at the end displaying two empty boxes, probably meant for Trainer portraits, and a timer set to 0:00.

The battlefield itself was caged within the larger room in a box made of tempered glass, while the rest of the area was roomy enough to comfortably look inward, as a sort of makeshift spectator area. However, in lieu of bleachers and other seat analogues, unmanned desktop computers were arrayed outside as if to observe unfolding battles—not for amusement, but strictly for data analysis.

Pipes lined the ceiling with some of them leaking steam—most likely just for heating purposes. She could hear the condensed steam falling and making a steady, rhythmic _drip drip drip_ noise as it pelted the top of the tempered glass box like a light rain. At the end of the room, underneath the score projection, there was an outcropping of a wall that appeared to serve as a stage of sorts; structure towers lined the top and held aloft spotlights and loudspeakers that had not yet turned on.

May waited for a few moments with bated breath. Unlike before, nothing was reacting to their mere presence there. For all she knew, they were the only ones even in the room, and a part of her was even starting to believe that maybe she had taken a wrong turn somewhere to begin with. Panic started to well in her, and desperate for anything to happen, she called out to the darkness, "Hello? Is there anyone there?"

For a moment, she was afraid that her call fell on deaf ears, but after a few seconds, she found herself startled by a loud mechanical lift rising from the top of the stage at the end of the room before eventually clanging to a complete stop. From there, she could see the lone figure of a man staring at her—Ash, perhaps?

A hardened look at him told her, no, there was no way. The man's hair was short and slicked back. His hair, while dark, was not black like Ash's was. His attire, too, was also far more formal than how he would normally dress: He was wearing a suit and tie, his white vest seeming to glow in the murky darkness. His face was chiseled and exuded confidence and cruelty, so much so that May's knees weakened from intimidation.

Yes, definitely not Ash.

His look of confidence swiftly turned to incredulity and then what appeared to be anger, like he had seen the ghost of someone who had slighted him in the past. "So it's true," the man said with abrasion in his voice. "You did survive."

May cleared her throat before responding to make sure it wouldn't crack out of fear. "Who are you?"

"I am the administrator of this facility, young lady. You may call me Evergreen."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I lied. I was distracted by Super Smash Bros. Ultimate while writing this. I'm sorry! :C
> 
> And now, for some news. The next update will probably not be for about another month or so. An overseas vacation has a pretty interesting way of being anathema to productivity, so unless I die in a fiery explosion, it may be a good idea to keep an eye out for mid- to late January for the next chapter. Perhaps I'll get some writing done during downtime or during my (very long) flights, but no guarantees.
> 
> Anywho, I hope this whets your appetite for just a bit longer! We're getting very close to answering the most pertinent questions that PikamasterADV left for us! Until next time, though, get Pokémon!


	3. 39: 'Tis Better to Love and Never Lose!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hoo, boy, that update took forever. Sorry about that, everyone! Between my overseas trip, the difficulty of writing this, and the fact that Kingdom Hearts III is actually (finally, truly) a thing now, getting this out in a timely manner was quite the challenge. But enough with the excuses; let's get on with the next chapter!

May always looked forward to the moment she'd faced the man behind the whole conspiracy with a great deal dread, although for the most part, much of it was simply a result of not knowing what to expect. A part of her had imagined he would have adhered more to a villain stereotype, like with a mysterious mask or a cape or something. Here, he was more publicly presentable, like the president of a company, a far cry from the embodiment of pure evil she had envisioned.

Yet the way he carried himself, coupled with the oppressive atmosphere and his fierce expressions, only amplified her fear despite the disconnect. She felt herself crumpling from the pressure, as though gravity itself had doubled, and she had to resist all desire to shield her eyes.

"So you must be May," said the man who had referred to himself as "Evergreen" after a minute of waiting for the girl to get over her hesitation to speak. "After all the ordeals you've endured the past few days, I can't imagine you've come all this way just to greet me with a blank stare."

The man still appeared to have been grappling with a revelation, as he refused to take his eyes off of her, barely even believing what they were showing him. It did little to obstruct his speech, however, as his words flowed with a clarity fit for an orator.

May, on the other hand, was less eloquent, but it wasn't as though she had to impress anyone, nor that the even cared to. She violently shook her head to break her so-called "blank stare" and, against her better judgment, stepped forward to get a better look. "We have a lot to talk about, Mr. Evergreen."

He raised his hand. "Just 'Evergreen' will suffice."

Right, whatever—a lot of insistence regarding a name that she knew wasn't even his to begin with. Nevertheless, she thought it best to humor him, lest she found herself denied answers in her interrogation...or worse, angering the boss of Kanto's infamous criminal organization himself.

"Evergreen, then," she acquiesced. "I have a bunch of questions for you."

He smiled, clearly unconcerned with her accusatory tone. "Well, we're hardly pressed for time. By all means, ask me any questions you desire."

Time for business.

"First of all, what have you done with Ash?"

The man chuckled. "Getting to brass tacks already? Well, I can assure you that he's safe and sound. No need to worry your pretty little face about it."

May, for a moment content with being told something she wanted to hear, sighed in relief. Yet a small part of her still nagged her and kept her from being completely at ease; she could never be sure if he was even telling the truth to start with. "I'm happy to hear that, but..."

She paused, unsure if she was about to tread on ground that she shouldn't. Even so, something still bothered her about when she last saw Ash; the look in his eyes were completely devoid of the compassion she knew they had before, and his voice had dripped with a malice that had not passed his lips in all of the time she knew him. Refusing to hold back, she continued. "That's not exactly what I meant."

He looked nonplussed, but he didn't seem to particularly mind her prodding. "What did you mean, then?"

"He wasn't himself. I saw him do terrible things… Burning Scott's house down, wanting to kill Scott, and threatening to attack us when we tried to stop him? That's not the Ash I know!"

"Scott? The creative head of the Battle Frontier?" So he wasn't going to _completely_ play dumb. That certainly eliminated the need for more introductions, at the very least. "You're throwing around a directory of names of interest, but what do any of them have to do with me? What is it that you accuse me of?"

"I know by now that you've been providing Scott funding, and now recently you've been trying to...k-kill him." She swallowed, resisting the shivers running down her spine. "And you put Ash up to this, didn't you?"

"You mean to say I somehow convinced your little goody-two-shoes boyfriend to assassinate another human being?" To this, Evergreen simply laughed, his bellowing voice fiercely bouncing off the walls and making the glass cage vibrate with a shrill hum. "Now _that_ is a tall tale if I've ever heard one."

May was growing indignant. "Well, it's true, isn't it?"

"Answer me this," he prompted her with a quick, unamused frown after his laughter had ceased. "Why, pray tell, would I jeopardize my good name and my organization's research by asking an innocent kid to pick off such a high-profile target?"

"I dunno," May answered rhetorically. "Maybe because he's been trying to sabotage that whole Network Machine business?"

His eyes slightly narrowed. "What has he told you about that?"

"It's less what he told me than what I saw." She proceeded to explain what she found over the past few days—the fact that Celio's Network Machine had been destroyed, the Brains' insistence on finding the two gemstones needed for it, the mass disappearance and imprisonment of One Island, and additional emphasis on the arson of Scott's house.

"I've been to many of the islands, and I've seen firsthand what you've done. Everything that's happened, it's just obvious by now that you're the one behind it."

Evergreen sighed, shaking his head. "I wonder if the whole archipelago knows about it by now…"

"You're not denying it?"

"I do admit I need an array of Network Machines to do my work, and yes, perhaps I have been a bit overzealous in my attempts to acquire the necessary materials. And yes, Scott's meddling has been troublesome…"

May scanned the man's face and saw that he was speaking as though he were reading from a prepared speech, completely at ease.

"But I didn't make an attempt on his life. Nor did I bring your sweet Ash to do it. To insinuate such is a very bold claim indeed. You insist I have a motive, even, but have you any evidence? Without that, whom do you think the authorities would believe? The whimsical fancies of a hormonal teenager?"

May _knew_ he was behind it, no matter what defense he used. Yet, all she could do was growl at him, conceding his point; indeed, she had no evidence to speak of besides hearsay. It was a tough point for her to let go of, but let go she did, deciding against wasting her breath and time pursuing what would only be a dead end.

"Now then," Evergreen said when it was clear that the girl had run out of ammo to debunk him, "what's your next question?"

The last line of inquiry deflating so heavily took a significant amount of wind out of her sails to follow it up with another. That, coupled with the oppressive atmosphere, made it difficult to focus on any one thing. Despite the high stakes, she felt like she had gone clothes shopping—head dizzy from shifting attention from one item to the next, and feet sore from the choice paralysis that had kept her firmly rooted in place.

After a long, embarrassing moment of deciding on a topic, she opened her mouth, practically speaking so low it came out as a whisper that even she could barely hear. After being asked to repeat herself, she did so with the same gusto of a puppy yelping while its family was sleeping—perfectly audible, but with a timidness made explicitly manifest.

"This place," she chirped, scanning the world outside the glass like a robin in a cage. "What is it for?"

Seemingly disappointed with such a trivial question, he slowly shook his head. "You went all this way without knowing its purpose? It's the latest Battle Frontier facility, the Battle Fortress."

May glared at him. _Don't patronize me,_ she almost said aloud, but she bit her tongue just in time to change course. "That's not what I meant," she instead responded in the most polite manner she could, although doing so did little to mute her irritability. "I think it's kind of obvious there's more to this place than meets the eye."

"Oh? Like what?"

Her patience had run dry. She heatedly recalled the previous departures from her party, trying desperately to hold back the tears that were threatening to well in her eyes. " _Everything!_ " she croaked what would have been a yell had the knot in her throat not been there. "There isn't a single battle facility as cruel and cowardly as this! Forcing Trainers to be separated from their Pokémon? It's awful!"

Evergreen, ever the poster child for human empathy, simply rolled his eyes. "All this outrage coming from a girl who forces her Pokémon to compete and fight in glorified _beauty pageants_? Oh, that's rich. I have a kettle here I'd like you to meet."

May's urge to kill, or at the very least scream threateningly, had sharply risen despite being rather high to start with—and her pool of restraint, while up to that point able to stay her hand, would not sustain for long at the rate he was getting under her skin. She took a deep breath, relaxed her fists, wiped excess moisture from her eyes, and spent some energy simply ignoring his taunts, all the while counting the minutes until she could finally knock him out with a boat oar. "Why would you even design a facility like this, anyway? What's the appeal?"

"I designed it this way because I had to. Sure, it's rough around the edges, but it isn't as though I came up with it willy-nilly while laughing and twirling an evil mustache. My design intentions were— _are_ —multifaceted."

"Why did you have to do this, then?"

"Well, first and foremost, we wanted to advertise it as the hardest challenge of any Battle Frontier facility; it is called the Battle _Fortress_ , after all. We didn't want just anyone coming in and making a bout for it, oh no. Only those who had successfully acquired all seven Frontier Symbols would be personally invited to challenge it.

"This facility was designed as a gauntlet to test how Trainers could strategize both in and out of battle. By being forced to sacrifice however many Pokémon are needed for a given match, they must carefully choose what Pokémon they want to have in reserve for the fights to come."

May stood there, still not quite believing one would regale the design choices of what was essentially a game so callously. "And what happens to the Pokémon who are left behind?"

"Well, if the challenger wins, they have nothing to worry about—and they're practically set for life, to boot. They win accolades, future prospects with the Frontier, and maybe even a specialty mug of their favorite Frontier Brain, if it pleases them. Needless to say, they get their Pokémon back, of course. Until that happens, though, they remain in my custody."

"So that's what it is. You made it unwinnable on purpose to steal people's Pokémon, didn't you?"

Evergreen laughed. "Unwinnable? _You're_ standing here, aren't you?"

"Only because you let me bring an entire party of people to fight for me. You didn't only expect us; it's almost like you actually wanted us to run the gauntlet."

"Well, you aren't wrong there. I'll give you that. As to why that is..." Just then, the man smiled maliciously, eliciting another severe chill down May's spine. "The answer to that is a simple one."

Immediately after, she was startled by a sudden _clang!_ behind her, a sound so loud it shook the glass and her eardrums so much she feared for a moment they'd both shattered. She turned around to locate it, and saw that what had once been an open doorway to the stairwell was barricaded shut with a steel door identical to the others.

"You all know too much."

May's heart sank when she realized what was happening. It was a trap all along, and they all fell for it. She and Pikachu stood there shocked, scarcely able to process the ramifications and even less able still to seek a way out. The feeling of defeat gnawed at her fingertips and weighed on her feet, and it left behind, in lieu of hope, a wave of dizziness that nearly toppled her to the floor.

"Why are you doing this…?" was all May could muster between claustrophobic gasps for air.

"You don't expect me to leave all these loose ends untied, do you?" Evergreen responded callously, without a shred of compassion. "That goes for the traitors, too."

"So even Anabel and Greta are—"

"To be disposed of, yes, the former's usefulness now moot. Along with that former Gym Leader friend of yours, that precocious lass, and those three blasted buffoons. I've been made aware they've wandered too close to our secrets here, as well, so they must also go, I'm afraid."

May then felt an overpowering feeling of guilt consume her. The idea to go off and storm the Battle Fortress to get Ash back was, after all, all hers; she should have foreseen that it was a possibility that a trap would be in waiting for them, but she ignored it, and all her one-track mind led her to was a gallows. And to make matters worse, she led her friends into it, too. Brock, Cyndi, Anabel, Greta, and a reformed Team Rocket...it wasn't a fate any of them deserved.

May revulsed at the thought of the injustice of being treated worse than the criminals that were under his own ranks. "Speaking of traitors," she countered, "what about Tucker and Brandon? What makes you think they won't backstab you like they did Scott?"

"Hmph, Tucker's far too deep into this to dig himself back out unscathed, and he knows it. The man is as desperate as he is flamboyantly vain, and he wouldn't risk packing up and leaving with his reputation in play.

"Brandon, on the other hand, is a special case. A useful idiot, perhaps you could call him. Or, perhaps more accurately, a contractor: We simply have a quid pro quo arrangement, he and I. In exchange for his services and loyalty, I help fund—and keep under wraps—his ancient Pokémon research."

"Wait," May interjected, confused yet hopeful at the same time. "So he's not actually a Team Rocket member?"

"Oh, no," Evergreen laughed. "He's just a carbon copy of Scott: completely unable to properly monetize his talents himself and only able to succeed after having crawled his way to me for a loan. I did agree to help him, of course, but only because I saw the value his research would truly bring. Other than that, he couldn't care less of how I see fit to use him."

He then lightly slapped his forehead, as if a realization had struck. "That's probably enough out of me. We wouldn't want to let Brandon's skeletons fall out of the closet, now would we?"

May sighed, still jittery from the fear of being trapped in a cage with no way out—but she was also disheartened, having come so close to getting to the bottom of what had been bugging her, yet she simultaneously felt like she had gotten no further than when she had begun. "So what now, Evergreen?" she finally said, disappointment and despair laced in her lips. "Are you going to kill us now?"

"You silly girl," the man shot back, gently shaking his head. "Where did you get the idea that I was going to kill you?"

_Wait, what?_

That was as far from being "disposed," as he put it, as one possibly could, from what she could see. It was simply too good to be true. "You're _not_ going to kill us?" she asked, relieved but suspicious.

His response was gentle but short. "No, of course not."

Then he paused for a moment to reach into his pocket for...something. What it was, exactly, May really couldn't tell in the dim lighting, although she figured it had to have been a remote control of some kind, as what sounded like a loud sports buzzer filled the air not a moment later.

Afterward, a low rumble shook just ahead of where she and Pikachu had stood, revealing a hatch opening in the ground. In its wake, a dark-haired, tatty figure was slowly lifted into the glass cage and had, after the moaning hydraulics came to a halt, faced them with a blank stare.

" _He_ is."

The figure looked all-too familiar. He was a young man of about fourteen years, perhaps more. His hair—hatless and exposed—was black, unkempt, and looked like it hadn't been washed in days. His attire fared no better, bearing the image of one who had been years adrift at sea: The blue vest and pants were ripped and singed in multiple places, patches of exposed flesh visible underneath.

The most striking feature, however, and the one that had most succeeded in impaling May's spirit, was his eyes.

Unlike the warm, auburn orbs she had become smitten with before, they were cold and lifeless, with the luster of common stone. She could just barely manage to gaze into them without shaking, the darkness from his pupils billowing forth like dark storm clouds. The only light within them she could see was a spark of lightning; the only voice, a clap of thunder that had paralyzed her soul. Only after forcing herself to look away did she realize that all it was, was the occasional involuntary discharge from Pikachu—no doubt as dumbfounded as she was.

"A-Ash…" she finally managed to say loudly enough to overshadow the sound of her overactive heartbeat. "It's you… Are you…?"

She had seen him like this before, she remembered. Not in real life, of course, but the uncanniness made her extremely uncomfortable, especially as the memory of her nightmare days prior had recalled in her mind. Except, this time, it wasn't a dream. It was real, and something about him was _wrong_. _Very_ wrong.

Despite all the senses in her body demanding she remain alert, she had to confirm it for herself. She took a step forward, and then another. Fear impeded her ability to walk much further, and the panicked water in her eyes had taken away her ability to see the boy clearly.

"Ash, this isn't funny! You recognize me, don't you?"

Ash didn't answer. Instead, he reached for his belt and lifted up a Poké Ball, pointing it straight at the Electric Mouse ahead.

"What are you—?" she asked in shock, jumping as soon as she realized what it was he was going to try to do.

" _Return_ ," he finally said with the same bizarre intonation of an automaton.

Then, reflexively, May shouted, " _Pikachu, dodge!_ "

He barely did, and to May's relief, the red beam of light that had shot from the ball harmlessly hit the soil where he had been standing. Pikachu took a second to take a couple gasps for air before resuming his battle-ready stance in case the boy decided to take another sneaky shot at him.

"Ash, what are you doing!? Snap out of it!"

"It is clear you have decided we should battle, and so we shall," was all he said in response, ignoring her protest. "Choose your Pokémon."

The familiarity of the situation was not lost on her. In fact, bearing witness to such a grotesque and otherworldly scenario so soon once more only had her more rattled. The cold eyes, the robotic voice, the unresponsiveness to basic commands...the symptoms were identical to Cyndi's when she was hypnotized back in the forest.

"Ash, no! I'm not going to battle you!" She knew the objection probably wouldn't have worked, but she wasn't very keen on raising a blade against her lover so soon without at least trying to de-escalate.

As expected, however, he didn't relent. "Choose your Pokémon."

It was all going nowhere fast, May thought to herself. She shot a glare at the man standing on the stage behind him, her teeth clenching so hard they threatened to grind into a fine powder. "Evergreen, what did you do to him!?"

The man laughed, amused at seeing the fruits of his handiwork paying off so well. "There's one more secret about this place that I hadn't yet told you. Another reason why we made the Battle Fortress such a challenge was because we doubled it as an R&D facility. There were few locations where we could carry out some of the projects I wanted to pursue without people breathing down our necks, so we had to make do. We also couldn't risk having spanners like, say, powerful Trainers who have just completed the Battle Frontier jeopardize our work so easily, if it came to that."

"Answer the question, Evergreen!" May shouted, her teeth still clenched and her eyes still locked in a glare. "What did you do to him!?"

Evergreen gave her a confused sort of look, as though May's ignorance had surprised him yet again. "Oh, did Scott not tell you?" he asked, his tone suggesting feigned concern. "The conditions of our agreement to provide him funding for the Battle Frontier included a clause that relinquished all of his authority over the Brains' terms of employment to me."

She already knew this, of course. "And?"

"That authority includes redefining the terms of their employment whenever I wish—including, ah, mandated _psychological evaluations_ for certain ESP-inclined individuals."

May couldn't quite believe what she was hearing. While it indubitably was human speech coming out of his mouth, it was a sort of arcane mysticism dressed up in the veneer of science fiction to her ears. Processing it submerged her entirely into a feeling of slipstream—the sort of uncomfortable sensation one experiences after bearing witness to something egregiously twisted, like seeing someone turn into a mouse before their eyes.

The feeling numbed all thought before slowing drowning to the repeated echo in the back of her head chanting, _He experimented on Anabel. He experimented on Anabel._ _ **He experimented on Anabel.**_

"As you can imagine," he continued, not seeming to have noticed May having temporarily fallen into a stupor, "it was quite the endeavor receiving the data necessary to emulate Anabel's abilities. She was cooperative enough to not show resistance—well, after a while, anyway—but the real difficulty was understanding their underlying mechanics themselves. Psychic powers aren't quite an exact science… But soon enough, we had a breakthrough, and now generating and manipulating the same waves that she uses is quite trivial."

"So the reason Ash was on the verge of assassinating Scott and doing your bidding was because you _hypnotized_ him into doing it?"

"Again with the baseless accusations? His urge to kill was completely of his own volition. The poor boy was so heartbroken over your 'death' that he saw no other avenue but to seek justice himself. All I did was give him a nudge—an idea of who was responsible for it—and he took it as gospel. Your boyfriend has quite a vengeful side of him, don't you know?"

No, she refused to believe it. He had to be lying. There was no way that Ash would succumb to such malevolent actions. He guided himself only by his gut, sure, and was sometimes too bullheaded to trust anything else that disagreed with it, but his gut never told him to harm another individual. _Revenge_ was a term practically absent from his vocabulary, let alone his conscience, so he couldn't have been himself when she heard him utter such poison-laden bile in front of her.

"Do you doubt what I say?" Evergreen said, snapping her out of her train of thought. "When you explained to him your side of the story, did he look unresponsive? Were his eyes glazed over? Can you look at him right now and say that what you see before you is how he acted?"

She couldn't.

"So that leaves one singular truth: Not only was he of sound mind, he was more resolved than any flimsy meat puppet could ever be. He _wanted_ revenge. He _seeked_ my help to get it. He _trained_ with me to prepare for that moment—and, in so doing, he became more than capable of carrying out the justice he so desired and, in exchange for my help, became my Champion of the Battle Fortress."

And so May's hope for Ash's innocence, after cracking under pressure, had finally shattered. She could think of no narrative more plausible than the one Evergreen presented her. There was no reasonable doubt, no optimistic story she could have woven, and not even an insanity defense she could raise on his behalf. It was attempted murder, without question.

With no way out, the tears she had been holding back with sheer will began to fall from May's eyes. She didn't want to believe what he was saying, and a part of her still refused to. The other half, however, couldn't deny it. The conflict between her inner voices arguing amongst themselves ushered in a weakness that had nearly brought her to her knees, and all she could do to argue was quietly weep.

Evergreen, his story complete, looked on at the pitiful sight. "It seems you have no more questions for me, and so we have run out of time. It's very regrettable, truly, that the life of such an upstart Trainer as yourself must end without at least having a moment to mourn, but _c'est la vie_."

He then called out to Ash with a booming, commanding voice. "Champion! Eliminate her, now!"

"Acknowledged," Ash responded robotically, his actions unperturbed by the girl's silent tears. "Charizard, I choose you."

Immediately after, there was a loud _pop_ followed by a blinding flash of light, and when it faded, there stood Ash's infamous Flame Pokémon, familiar in most qualities—strength, bulk, and intimidation—but notably surreal in others. He was hunched over in stature to such an exaggerated extent, and his eyes were dazed and didn't really look at May so much as look past her, as if she were as uninteresting to look at as a tree stump.

Now that she thought about it, he didn't so much as make a peep when he was summoned, either. There was no roar, flapping of wings, or even a thin plume of smoke from his nostrils, as was his normally-preferred method to intimidate. So, too, did his facial expression not match the demeanor she came to know him for. In many ways, he and Ash looked the same, absent of any sort of fighting spirit or even, one may say, much of a spirit at all; instead, it was replaced by some mindless imperative to fight—not for sport but simply to fulfil a command.

May, in a sense, wasn't too different then. She, too, lacked focus in her eyes and drive in her soul. Her head hung low, barely able to see clearly Charizard's clawed feet scraping the dirt and gravel. Nor did she really want to or care much anymore. The logical part of her brain did realize that Evergreen was just trying to demoralize her out of resisting, but the emotional part ignored that reasoning and fell for the mind game all too easily regardless.

_May!_

What did it matter, anyway? If Ash had really fallen, then was it really worth it? Did anything even matter anymore? Maybe it was best for her to fade into the dark and let Evergreen have his way.

"Charizard, use Slash."

Of course it was worth it. Darkness lies within everyone. No one is perfect. No matter what Ash did, he still deserved a second chance and, at the very least, a chance to tell his side of the story.

_May!_

He already _did_ tell his side of the story, however. He said it himself: Everything he did, he did to avenge both her and Pikachu. He confessed to his crime, and what else? Scott's house was engulfed in flames through no one's fault but his own.

_May!_

But Scott still lived, and Ash hadn't killed anyone. Even more, he was ecstatic— _ecstatic!_ —to see them again, and after everyone had said their part, he saw it fit to ask the mastermind himself his side of the story. He wasn't a mindless killer like Evergreen had suggested he was. He wasn't malicious. Ash deserved another shot like anyone else, _and she would not give up on him._

_**May! Look out!** _

She snapped her focus ahead of her and instinctively leapt with all of her might to her left to avoid a claw that made its way just mere inches from her neck. Her brain's processing overclocked from the fresh dose of adrenaline, and in a moment that felt eerily like slow motion, she glanced to her right and saw that her escape was enabled not just by her last-second instinct to survive but also a small yellow blur ramming head first into Charizard's side. The relatively-tiny mass had little effect on the normally overwhelming inertia of the other, but it was _just enough_ to at least alter his course.

Her foot stomped the ground as she nearly lost her balance, not quite sticking the landing and having to teeter for a moment to straighten herself. Charizard, having noticed that he missed, turned to face her and immediately, unenthusiastically readied another Slash her way. The lack of the element of surprise hampered his attempt, however, as she more-readily jumped back to regain space and landed with a tad more finesse before the second swipe could strike her.

It wasn't as though she had much of an advantage despite it, really. Charizard was faster, stronger, and bolder than she was; so going solo against him had no favorable endgame. Instinctively, she reached for a Poké Ball and called for the first Pokémon that came to her mind as she stared down into the caldera that had threatened to erupt once more.

"Eevee, take the stage!"

Another light flickered between her and her adversary, and the flash appeared to distract Charizard at least for a little bit, just long enough for her to skitter away to a safer distance. When her bushy-tailed, canine-like Pokémon appeared in its place, there was still little time to waste, however. "Eevee, Tackle! Keep him off me!"

Without delay, her Eevee did what was told and slipped past Charizard's defenses to slam into him with such a force that staggered him a bit—not nearly enough to knock him over but enough still to draw aggro. Satisfied, she barked a loud " _Bui!_ " to celebrate but didn't dare take her eyes off her opponent.

"Charizard," Ash began to command, still emotionally lifeless and utterly immune to Eevee's taunting, "use Seismic Toss on Eevee."

_Seismic Toss already!?_ May exclaimed in her head. That attack Ash would normally not use until well after his opponent was damaged enough that he needed a _coup de grâce_ , or at least she had never recalled seeing him instruct his Pokémon to use it right out of the gate like that. Perhaps Evergreen, or whoever else it was who was controlling his mind, had little experience with his fighting style to know better—or, even more worrisome, he knew exactly what he was doing.

In a panic, May commanded Eevee to get out of the way, but it was all too late: Charizard rushed forward with a powerful flap of his wings and scooped up the small Pokémon in his claws. Gripping her so tightly she couldn't break free, he jetted up towards the ceiling of the glass box and, at the apex of his flight, tumbled forward endlessly—faster and faster and faster until both Pokémon looked almost like a blurred ring from below.

" _Eevee, break free!_ "

It was impossible. Charizard's grip was too strong, and the constant spinning made Eevee too dizzy to do much. Before long, he began his final nosedive, inching closer and closer to the ground before finally letting go. A loud crash echoed about the field, and a cloud of dust filled the enclosed space, taking a few sweet moments to settle to reveal the result, like a rug unveiling a new car model at a show.

In the center of the field was a small crater where dust, sand, and dirt had been displaced from the impact. In the center of it was May's Eevee, dazed and completely unable to move. She had gone down in a single hit.

May was in shock. She knew Charizard was strong already and that he'd gone through extra training over the past few days, but she had never anticipated such unprecedented improvement so quickly. The difference wasn't just night and day; it was January and July.

She recalled her Pokémon before the damage got any worse and vowed to get her healed up at the earliest opportunity. She looked upon the nigh-insurmountable obstacle ahead and heard a dread-filled lamentation in her honor, or at least an imaginary one composed in the heat of the moment.

Desperate, she brought her memory back to that day in the woods when they all found Cyndi in the hopes of finding some kind of clue that could help. It was a straightforward chain of events, though it still wasn't that much to go off of: The group found her, she essentially declared war without provocation, Ash mistakenly called for Sceptile despite him no longer being in his party and substituted Pikachu, and then Cyndi resumed battle as if Sceptile was actually there.

The latter struck her as especially odd. It was as though she was hallucinating wholesale something completely contrary to what was reality, and not only that, she didn't even seem to notice that her Skarmory had been defeated. Granted, that was likely simply an amateurish demonstration of control on Anabel's side, so it wasn't like she could expect Evergreen to make the same mistake.

Or could she?

She reached for her Poké Balls to place Eevee's back, and then swung her arm forward to send out the Pokémon she traded for: "Your turn, Squirtle!" Of course, she had left her Squirtle back in Pallet Town before she and Ash had ferried to the Sevii Islands, and so all that flew out of her hand was an empty pocket of air—just as planned.

However, all Ash did was stare blankly at where a flash of light would have been and stand silently for a few seconds before finally saying, "Charizard, use Slash on May."

May gasped, her mouth agape. "It's not working!?" She figured it had to have been a long shot, but the prospect of being clever was too tempting to pass up. Even so, why didn't it work?

"I know what you're trying to do," Evergreen stated plainly, smiling as though he himself had captured a queen with a bishop. "Did you really think we didn't encounter that issue repeatedly during testing? I personally made sure that was the _first_ thing that was fixed."

She couldn't depend on taking advantage of exploits. _If I want to get out in one piece, I'll need to snap him out of it somehow._ The solution was simple enough, but even so, she had no idea how to even carry it out. Heck, she had no idea what was even causing it in the first place. Figuring that out was priority number one—but how could she do it?

She saw Charizard twitch, the first sign of him about to lunge. Time of the essence, she couldn't come to rely on her own Pokémon for the time being, so she had to go with the next best thing. "Pikachu, take the stage!"

Pikachu nodded in acknowledgement and zipped up to stand between him and May in protection, raring to go and ready to pounce, himself.

"Use Thunderbolt!"

His cheeks then built up stored charge and, with a loud cry, let it all out with a bright flash of lightning at the winged lizard. It hit its mark, and Charizard was engulfed in an electrostatic light. He roared in pain and almost dropped to his knees when the sustained bolt of lightning had ceased a couple seconds later, after which he charged toward Pikachu at Ash's command with another Slash attack.

_He's impossible to stop!_ While Pikachu was able to dodge to the side using Agility, May could tell Charizard had practice closing gaps swiftly. He was very clearly deadly in close-quarters combat, and so May commanded Pikachu to stay at a respectable distance while she continued to mull over how to stop the battle quickly.

It was especially weird, this situation, because when Cyndi was hypnotized in the forest, she was the only one affected. Her Skarmory was completely unaffected—which made sense, as it couldn't be possible that Anabel could psychically control a Pokémon while they were already recalled in a Poké Ball, not to mention the alleged difficulty of controlling just one person, and at a distance, at that.

Ash and Charizard, however, were definitely both hypnotized, showing the exact same symptoms. Charizard was fierce, to be sure, but he wasn't as savage in combat as she'd previously seen him, so it was the only explanation.

That still didn't explain the method, however. How was Evergreen able to pull this off? Was he himself psychic? If he was, why would he need a Champion or a team of underlings to do his bidding? Not only that, how would he be able to hypnotize two victims at once?

No, it was impossible. Anabel's voice filled her ears as she recalled the story she told everyone at the Pokémon Center after their encounter:

_Anabel read Cyndi's mind and saw what she was dreaming about in her unconscious state. She was wandering a vast, bright forest, searching for something. With a deep breath, Anabel focused her mind. She tapped into the girl's thoughts, and soon the body began to sit up, eyes still shut. Her eyelids slowly opened, but the orbs within remained dim, focused on some faraway, unseen object._

_"Awesome!" Greta exclaimed, unable to stop herself from jumping up in celebration. "You really did it!"_

_The startling jump caused Anabel to lose her concentration. The younger girl fell backwards again, resuming her undisturbed slumber. Anabel, on the other hand, fell back into a sitting position, panting deeply with sweat pouring down her head._

_"What happened?" the blonde asked, stepping over. "Why did she fall back down?_

" _It… it… it requires the utmost concentration," Anabel said, still panting. "When you spoke, I couldn't focus." She shook her head. "And unless you couldn't tell, it's already really taxing as it is."_

_Greta scowled. "Well, then pick up the kid and let's go," she gruffly said, turning around to leave. Anabel did as she was told and, with Cyndi resting precariously on her back in an awkward piggyback ride, followed suit._

If Evergreen were the one controlling them directly, he wouldn't have been able to converse with her without him losing his concentration, she noted. And, come to think of it, if he were psychic, he wouldn't have needed to subject Anabel to those "evaluations" anyway. So, it had to have been something else who was controlling them. But what?

Was it some sort of machine giving off weird mind-control signals somewhere in the facility? No, that was impossible, too, or else she and Pikachu would've been hypnotized along with the others. It had to be something, though—something that could not have its concentration broken so easily, nor could it be so non-discriminatory as to put everyone within a one-kilometer distance under control.

As Charizard swooped by in an attempt to snap at a Pikachu still too quick to catch, May caught caught a small glimpse of what it could have been: After he missed his target and ascended, exposing the back of his horns, she saw what looked to be a black hair clip clamped to the nape of his neck and running a few inches down his spine. She didn't get a much better look at it in the split second she had, but she knew for a fact that it wasn't there when she and Ash had gone flying the other day.

And so she had another idea—a risky one.

"Pikachu, wait for it to grab you with a Seismic Toss!"

Pikachu gaped at her, completely dumbfounded, and then after a second, his expression twisted into a look of incredulity when he realized that he didn't, in fact, mishear her.

"I know it sounds crazy," she assured him, "but trust me on this. Let him get in range, and wait for my command."

Pikachu still didn't seem very convinced, but he nevertheless gave a muted "pika" in understanding, although it was less out of confidence and more like he wanted to say, "All right, but this is insane."

Ash—or perhaps his controller, rather—seemed to agree. "Charizard, use Seismic Toss."

Perfect. Charizard silently complied with his request and swooped back down towards Pikachu, still emotionally constrained but, nevertheless, building up as much speed as one who had gone berserk. Pikachu twitched but somehow resisted all of his urge to dodge; besides a few glances from side to side, he stood firm until he got closer.

And closer.

_Closer_.

And then finally, "Pikachu, jump over him and use Iron Tail on his neck!"

He didn't even think twice; his jump came by pure survival instinct as Charizard's nose was practically touching his. Unfortunately, though, the Flame Pokémon was faster that time, managing to snatch Pikachu right out of the air like a frog from a pond.

May's heart sank to the pit of her stomach as she imagined all manner of gruesome outcomes that were about to unfold, but she pressed on anyway—she had to. "Break free of his grip, or it's all over! Thundershock his claws!"

Pikachu obeyed, and a small spark of light flashed from above. By the looks of it, it was enough to loosen Charizard's grip, and he wasted no time to break free. From there, a rather unusual marvel showed itself to the spectators below: A small figure struggled against the weaving and bucking of the colossus, barely able to keep his grip and shaking about like a ragdoll. There were a few times that May feared that a fall was inevitable, but somehow he managed to hang on and inch his way closer to his neck, until finally he saw the strange black device surgically inserted into his spine.

After a few seconds, he was in range, but Charizard had only grown more violent in the hopes of forcing him off. When he figured out how to properly grip him, however, it was all too late. "Now, go for it, Pikachu! _Iron Tail!_ "

To be honest, she wasn't even sure how it would work in that sort of scenario. Charizard was weaving, changing course, accelerating and decelerating, and was just overall a volatile and unpredictable animal. Pikachu needed time to charge energy into his tail and then get a running start to finally strike his target. It was a very particular set of steps that, to that day, didn't yield consistent results. A voice in her head asked her, how could she expect him to perform such a specific move when he barely had any control over his movement to begin with?

And then there was the matter of what the aftermath would be. Would it even work? Or, if it did, would Charizard even be okay? Would destroying a device with it still functioning cause any bad side effects? Would the Iron Tail miss or be so strong that it would cause nerve damage? What if it permanently paralyzed him—or worse?

May shut up the voice, insisting that she had faith Pikachu would do it and that everything would work out. Self doubt in her abilities to instruct Pokémon remained, but she knew he could handle it and that he would prevail. The only other choice she had was to surrender, and belief itself was all that was left of what she could put faith in.

Pikachu, having taken a moment to charge his tail, waited for the right moment to jump and slam it into his target, which was not as easy as it looked, considering the constant shifting forces shaking him about like a maraca. Before long, though, he got his chance when Charizard took just a couple seconds to rest before attempting to shake him off again; he flew straight, just a few feet below the top of the glass box—a bit of a tight squeeze for most, but for Pikachu's purposes, it was enough space to get the job done.

He maintained the charge, jumped into the air, quickly twisted to maximize his torque, and then—

_WHAM!_

Charizard's eyes grew dim from the impact and he silently began to fall back to earth, the back of his neck sparking with small discharges. Bits of plastic and metal showered down from the sky like little meteoroids and left behind thin, wispy contrails that smelled of sulfur and burnt rubber. He landed with a loud crash, and Pikachu soon followed, fortunately managing to land, however ungracefully, on the former's prone body like a trampoline.

May waited with bated breath while the dust cleared, clutching her heart in panicked concern as she spied for even the slightest hint of movement from the two Pokémon. Pikachu, a tad dazed from the landing, climbed up from Charizard's back and signaled to her a peace sign. So he was okay, at least. Charizard himself, on the other hand, still didn't move.

Not good, she told herself. She sprinted up to Ash's Fire-type Pokémon and inspected his body for any obvious injuries. His scales were tough and singed a bit from the Electric-type attacks, but otherwise, any wounds he suffered were superficial. Even his spine seemed okay despite the strong Iron Tail that completely destroyed that device, whatever it was, some parts of which still attached but, at that point, hardly more functional than body piercings.

And yet he himself would not wake.

She tried to shake him awake, and shook harder when her meager strength couldn't move him, and when he remained still, her breath froze in her lungs. "Charizard, wake up!" she wanted to say, but her throat choked on her fear. Pikachu joined in, attempting to add his strength to her own, but he still did not budge.

May's terror grew tenfold; she hugged her chest and began to shake profusely, dire and morbid thoughts running through her head. _I killed him…_ she repeated to herself over and over. _He's dead…_ Ages passed, it felt like, with her just sitting there, until she heard a startlingly loud noise erupt in front of her.

_Zzz…_

...He was asleep? Did that mean he was okay and that he wasn't hypnotized anymore after all? The fact that he was no longer trying to kill her was a rather encouraging sign, to be sure—but she couldn't be positive until she had another data point to test with.

She stood to face Ash once more. He stared back at her absentmindedly, as though he had just gotten up from a long nap himself, or was resurrected from the dead and hungered for her brains. There were no other signs of emotion, nor any noticeable reaction from having one of his strongest Pokémon felled so quickly. Instead, he slowly raised his Poké Ball and uttered, "Charizard, return," and waited until his Pokémon was completely engulfed in a red light and safely encapsulated.

Then she had another idea.

Letting the wild girl inside her take control, she sprinted toward him without thinking and tackled Ash to the ground before he had the chance to send out his next Pokémon. She embraced his arms and pinned his feet to keep him from escaping, an endeavor made more challenging by her inferior strength. Fortunately, her leverage and flexibility where significantly superior to his, especially with his motions akin to that of a marionette with no fine motor control.

"What are you doing!?" Evergreen shouted from atop the stage. "Stop what you're doing at once!"

That only made her want to struggle more. In defiance, she put more of her upper body strength to work, including even her head to keep his from flailing about. Through their fight, she caught a nauseating whiff of his odor—pungent from an obvious lack of bathing and a slight burning from some unknown source, except maybe his training with Charizard. She held her breath to keep herself from gagging and conceding room for him to fight back, and after a few seconds, she managed to keep him pinned onto his stomach.

She tugged the back of his shirt down, and then she saw it—a strange, black device implanted into the back of his neck. A braid of wires ran down about a three-inch space along his spine, held together by a brace with the likeness of a hair clip or a stereotypical integrated circuit. The wires had the appearance of a dark grapevine growing out of twelve, maybe sixteen, entries into his flesh; and each had a small green LED faintly twinkling like a tiny wireless ethernet adapter.

" _NO!_ "

May ignored Evergreen's futile attempt to stop her and reached for the wires, yanking as hard as she could. There was significant resistance, and she was afraid that she was going to rip his skin off. Her fears were assuaged, however, when they eventually snapped out, and with them, the black brace. And, almost like a switch had been flipped off, Ash's body went completely limp and no longer tried to struggle against her weight.

Taking a moment to rest, she inspected the site on his neck where the device had been. There were visible puncture marks left behind where the wiring was injected into his skin, but there was no bleeding or anything else to indicate that they had healed, which suggested the device had been installed very recently. She shuddered to think how much it was going to sting when he woke up, though…

Satisfied at her work dispatching her attackers, she stood up and brushed all the dust off her legs. Afterward, she turned to face Evergreen, who looked—well, "hell on earth" was probably how one would have most aptly described the sort of outrage that most wouldn't consider to be physiologically possible. His face was a deep crimson and twisted with such an ire for her that she expected his head to literally explode at any moment. He shook violently in a last-ditch attempt to control his temper, tapping his feet when the urge to strangle her had almost taken hold.

But, surprisingly, he didn't speak.

"So what now, Evergreen?" May taunted, holding up the device as though it were the head of a slain enemy. "Not much of a threat without slaves to hide behind, are ya?"

He was as quiet as the grave. He uttered nothing in response.

"Cat got your tongue? Well, if you have no more opponents to send my way, then—"

She was interrupted from a groan coming from the ground. May turned to see the source, and she saw Ash barely managing to push himself up with wobbly arms. Concern for the boy washed over her and overrode any desire to continue antagonizing the man watching them both with a gaze filled to the brim with spite.

"Ash! You're awake?" she exclaimed as she rushed over to help him. Pikachu, also excited, dashed over along with her and tugged on his shirt, as if to do whatever he could to help him up.

"M-May…?" he grumbled, clearly groggy. "Where am I…?"

"No time to explain. Are you okay? Can you walk?"

"Y...yeah, I think so…" He tried to push himself up and stand, but he had overestimated himself; his legs were quite weak to stand on on his own, and his balance was abysmal, made worse as soon as his mind registered the agonizing sharp pain in the back of his neck. He clutched it and fell backwards into May's arms, writhing. And, almost as soon as he had the chance to massage his neck, his head cracked open with a debilitating migraine of its own. "Aaagh! It hurts! _Everything hurts!_ What happened to me?"

"Ash, shh, calm down. You'll be all right," she cooed soothingly. "You were under a hypnotic 'spell,' kinda, but Pikachu and I got you out of it."

Her words did little to numb the pain, but the sound of her voice still had a sort of tranquilizing effect on him. He stopped squirming and resisting May's attempts to get him to calm himself, eventually taking deep breaths when she instructed him to. Soon enough, enough of the pain subsided to the point where he could continue the conversation without having to recoil and wince, if for a moment.

"I was hypnotized? Like with Cyndi in the forest the other day?"

May nodded. "But it wasn't Anabel this time. It was _this._ " She held up the device still clutched in her hand and handed it to him. He looked at it with a sort of confused wonder, turning it and spinning in all the ways he could to absorb every angle and individual piece. He became fixated on the wires, brace, and particularly the nearly couple dozen thin needles that glistened in the light. He touched the back of his neck for a moment to feel the puncture wounds and then tossed the device away in disgust when he realized that the needles were _inside him_ not a moment ago.

"Ash, what do you remember last?"

He stared off into space for a bit as he rewound his memories and played them back in sequence. "Well, I saw you again, and then I flew back to the Battle Fortress, and then I went to talk to Evergreen, and then…" He paused, his mind having gone blank, followed up quickly with another powerful migraine. He clutched his head and roared in agony, nearly breaking May's heart.

"Yes? And then?"

"I...don't remember…" He trailed off for a moment before glaring holes into the stones resting next to them. "But I do know who caused this." To May's surprise, he got up with all of his might, and though he swayed a bit as he struggled to recalibrate his balance, he was up and about and able to completely ignore the pain he was in.

"Evergreen!" he shouted, startling the girl. "I know it's you! What did you do to me?"

The man looked over at him for a moment before turning to the side and averting his gaze, still saying nothing.

" _Answer me!_ "

No longer able to keep his rage under control, Evergreen then loosened his vocal chords and let loose with all the venting his body needed. " _You will not speak to me in that way, you little whelp!_ " he bellowed, taking Ash aback. "I did not intend to have all of my work undone by a couple of _dumb, daft, dimwitted_ _ **dolts**_ _!_ And you have the _gall_ to demand I tell you what I've done!? _How dare you!_ "

Ash said nothing. The heated outburst coming from the man who, not long ago, was helping him ostensibly under the goodness of his heart surprised him and, to put it simply, scared him—the sort of fear he reserved only for the quiet ones who finally cracked under a titanic weight. Unable to voice any sort of response, all he could do was motion for him to continue after his rant had stalled by an awkward pause.

"Yes, I put you under a hypnotic trance. What with your beloved girlfriend's miraculous resurrection and all, there was little more leverage I could exert over you without taking...less moderate measures. And so I just used that ability that girl Anabel was kind enough to teach us so I could get my Champion back to tie up the rest of the loose ends."

"Anabel helped you with this?"

"Indeed, she did—and that is all I will say to you. You should know I _abhor_ repeating myself, and between you and the girl there, I think you all know plenty enough."

May tapped Ash's shoulder. "Don't worry," she whispered. "I'll fill you in when we get out of here."

Evergreen let out a frustrated, raspy chuckle. "And don't think this means that you're getting out of here. The doors are all locked, and you have no way out."

Ash stepped forward between him and May and Pikachu, ignoring the headaches that half-blinded him. "We're not powerless, you know. I may be in pain, but I'm not under your control anymore. We still have our Pokémon, and what do you have? You have none of your own!"

Evergreen flashed a grin, still clearly seething with rage. "First of all, you only have that yellow rat to help you. Well, that and your girlfriend's Pokémon, or what's left of them. Your Charizard is out cold, and I saw to it your other Pokémon have devices of their own—and believe me, they will not hesitate to use lethal force against you if it came to that. So don't even try to send them out."

Then...he laughed. "Second of all...I'm not completely defenseless. I do have one more Pokémon that can defend me."

_Wait, he does?_ Ash thought to himself. _He never told me during training he had a Pokémon with him…_ Then the question became, what? What kind of Pokémon did he get a hold of that would be able to keep them away? Whatever it was, he was confident that between Pikachu and May's remaining Pokémon, they'd be able to overcome whatever he could throw their way, no problem; but even so, the thought scared him deep down.

His fears were realized when a loud fingersnap stabbed his ears and further inflamed his headache. A woosh filled the room outside the glass box, and a strong gust of wind bellowed in a twisting vortex and knocked over most of the monitors that were already precariously hanging over the edges of their desks. The swirling air spun faster and faster until it became a towering spire of fire, engulfing the box completely and quickly turning the battlefield into a greenhouse and blinding the couple in a dazzling display of rainbow flames.

They shielded their eyes before their retinas could burn and almost toppled over when a powerful rumble filled the stadium, followed by a loud crash and the sound of shattered glass pelting the ground like a scalding hail. When the sound of the crystalline rain had petered out, May took a moment to feel the air, and, oddly enough, it was no longer so hot that she thought her skin was going to melt off. It was cool and breezy, not unlike the tropical zephyr the couple had enjoyed not long ago.

When she looked up, however, a tropical paradise she did not see.

Instead, she saw a great bird, its wings dyed a brilliant shade of gold and orange. Its aura, significantly hotter than the surrounding cooler air, shined upon them like the sun, its silver comb and tail feathers radiating a heavenly light. Its down scintillated, tiny stars popping in and out of existence against the matte lighting of the dull black ceiling.

The wings' flaps generated mini tornadic infernos that swirled in all directions before eventually twisting themselves into nothingness. Its talons continuously gripped at the air, like it was strangling prey or had seen pray to strangle. Its beak opened, revealing a deafening shriek that vibrated their ribs like tuning forks and forced them to clamp their ears shut.

This was no mere Pokémon that Evergreen had hidden up his sleeve. It was one the legends themselves had spoken of—and it had eyed the three of them hungrily.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember when I said that this chapter was difficult to write? I wasn't kidding. It was far longer than I was aiming for, had dialogue that was hard to perfect (and even then, I feel it could've been better...), and had action, which I have a love-hate relationship with writing. Considering what's implied in the cliffhanger-dun dun duuuuuuun!-I imagine the next one won't be that much easier, but hey.
> 
> With that, we've finally reached the final battle! Tune in next time to see the thrilling conclusion! Well, before the epilogue, that is. Until then, folks, get Pokémon!
> 
> also yes kingdom hearts iii did make me cry thanks for asking


	4. 40: Together, We're Unbeatable!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this took far longer than I wanted. Between writer's block and my low-key hatred for writing action scenes, this was a few months in the making. So, many apologies for the long wait, but I hope this makes up for it!
> 
> Finally, the moment we all, myself included, have been waiting for: the final battle.

May stood in awe at the frightening sight and admired its strange beauty in the same way a fish would look upon an osprey, her pointer finger limply outstretched but her mouth agape and silent from shock. She stared at the bird, both to carefully read its movement in case it suddenly attacked, as well as to simply take in a view most in their lifetimes would never. The bird, in turn, stared back, as if to enjoy the same luxury.

Ash, ever scholar that he was, instinctively reached for his Pokédex but recoiled when his migraine zapped his head. Between the headache and the waves of heat distorting the light around the Pokémon like a liquid magnifying glass, he couldn't see ahead very clearly. Feeling vulnerable, he blindly grasped for May's hand to get his bearings but gripped nothing but thin air.

After a while, May's throat could finally make a sound resembling human speech and string some meaning together. "Th-that's it…! The Ho-Oh from my dream... That's it…"

"The one that had different colors?" Ash asked through clamped eyes and clenched teeth. "That Ho-Oh?"

The bird's shape and scheme were unmistakably different than what the Pokédex showed her, and her dream was so vivid and traumatic she'd never conceived confusing the two. She nodded and turned to face the shadowy man looking down upon them from behind his demigodlike bodyguard, gripping Ash's hand tightly so he didn't have to fumble any longer.

"How did you even manage to find this, Evergreen?" she asked him as their defacto representative while Ash still reeled from having that device ripped off of him. "Did you steal this one, too?"

"I'm no more a thief than a Trainer who would swipe a Spearow from its nest, if that's what you're calling me," he snapped back. "The only thing that differed was the method. All I needed was a lead where to find it—and did I not say that Brandon's research would pay off in dividends?"

"So this is why you roped up Brandon into this? So you could capture Ho-Oh?"

Evergreen sighed regretfully. "No way to let the cat back into the bag, I suppose. But in short, yes."

"Why would he even agree to go along with what you wanted?" Ash growled, his voice raspy. "Was this the 'dream' he cared so much about?"

"He was never that forthcoming about that, even to me, but it couldn't be more obvious. He pursued his research with the sole purpose of finding and studying Ho-Oh, and not only did he ultimately succeed, but also with his help, we discovered a truly marvelous specimen. And now, we get to put it to the test."

Ash struggled against his weight to pull himself upright. "Not if I have anything to say about it!" He stepped forward, finally getting the hang of his balance, but the vibration of his voice ringing in his jaw triggered another severe migraine. He instinctively put his hand to his temple, yet try as he might to maintain eye contact with his adversary, the pain overpowered him and forced his eyes closed.

May then pushed herself past and held him back with a protective, outstretched arm, shaking her head. "No, Ash. You need to rest. Let me take it from here."

Ash was taken aback, his mouth ajar, stunned—the feeling of electricity still shocking his cranium, incidentally. He didn't much like the thought of him being useless to assist, and he would have shaken his own head back at her in protest, were it not for the fact that shaking his brain about like a soggy cabbage in a jar would only have made the pain worse. "Are you sure?" he instead asked, half conceding. "By yourself?"

"Of course! Just sit tight. I'll protect you this time. Go and rest." Taking her eyes off of him while he found a safe spot to take a breather, she turned to face Evergreen and the Ho-Oh under his command. "C'mon, Pikachu!"

Pikachu dashed to her side and unleashed a few warning sparks from his cheeks, snarling " _Pika!"_  in an adrenaline-filled war cry. Ho-Oh snapped back at him with a rally of its own so loud it almost shattered what remained of the glass box and blew a sizeable volume of dust in their eyes. But try as the ensuing shockwave might to knock them over, they planted their feet and refused to back down.

"All right, 'Evergreen.' It ends now!"

The swagger induced little more reaction out of him than a chuckle. "Well, aren't you a confident one. Let's find out how long you'll survive."

Evergreen thrust his hand forward and clenched his fist, his rage having come to a simmer; his composure, congealed. "Now, Ho-Oh! Incinerate them with Sacred Fire!"

A loud whistle buzzed in the air in front of them as a white-hot fireball, with the intensity to match a distant nova, materialized in front of the Pokémon's beak. A shockwave of air like that from a jet engine burst through just a moment later, the mystical ball of flame careening towards the relatively-unimposing pair staring up from down below like a deer in a pair of headlights.

May had but only a couple seconds to react, let alone issue a command, so much of what happened next was largely the result of instinct: The two ran in two separate directions before the destructive comet struck the ground and braced for the imminent impact. There was a loud explosion and a hot flash of light in front of them, and she had half expected being riddled with stone and glass shrapnel. To her relief, however, all she got was a cloud of dust in her eyes and hair.

She looked around as the fallout settled to the ground and realized that the shockwave had launched her a good couple meters backwards. Pikachu didn't fare much better, having sprawled onto his back in a daze. "Pikachu!" she called between coughs and gasps for clean air. "Are you okay?"

Pikachu scrambled to get up and ran in the opposite direction to create some space between him and the large bird before it launched another bomblike volley. He didn't validate her concerned call with a response, but the fact that he had started moving like nothing had happened was enough of an answer for her.

The good news forced a smile on her face. "All right, I'll take that as a yes. In that case, use Thunderbolt!"

Pikachu built up a massive charge before letting loose a major surge of electrical energy. It flew towards Ho-Oh fast and clean, and May cheered internally when the hit was all but assured. However, not even a second later, it inexplicably curved to the side before harmlessly hitting the ground just a few feet from where May had gotten back up, as though a gale that somehow had the ability to redirect lightning had whipped up and blew at them.

The clap of thunder that boomed in her ears gave her more of a jolt than the Thunderbolt would have, although the large spark spooked her nonetheless. How did that even happen? Pikachu's aim was spot-on, especially with such a straightforward shot to its target. It couldn't have just been a rookie mistake, so what happened?

She would have sooner not wanted the question answered if it meant having to be shamed—not that Evergreen paid any due sympathy to her concerns. "Do you like it?" he said with a sneer. "I was as surprised as you to find that it had access to Extrasensory—due in no small part to the fact that it had practically destroyed the first device we tested on it and even almost bricked our computer equipment. But 'tis how the path of science sometimes winds."

May had little recourse than to feel spooked from the sudden development. It was clear from the reflected attack that they couldn't play it safe and outcamp Ho-Oh—which, unfortunately for her, meant they would have to get close. She froze in place, so hesitant to take her opponent head-on she began to shiver despite the overwhelming heatwave that had engulfed them.

It was a fear so strong that Evergreen could smell it from across the field. "You can't stand there forever, you know," he said, thoroughly enjoying the scent. "Eventually, you'll have to strike back!  _Sacred Fire again, Ho-Oh!_ "

" _Dodge left, Pikachu!_ "

Her words might as well have bounced off thick walls, what with the massive amount of noise building up from the Ho-Oh's attack, yet Pikachu knew well enough to not make an attempt to tank it. Another large shockwave erupted from the fireball's point of impact, but fortunately, both Trainer and Pokémon were far enough away to not suffocate from the cloud of dust or be incinerated by the wall of heat.

"Give it another Thunderbolt!"

Pikachu was unsure whether or not trying something that nearly backfired a moment ago was wise, and he had half a mind to disobey May's order completely-perhaps instead to charge in with an Iron Tail or a Volt Tackle. However, he took it as a sign she simply wanted him to keep his distance. Not that it would do much if they were being sniped with what was essentially a tiny star, but even so, maybe the first time was just a fluke.

More quickly this time, he unleashed residual charge at his opponent so it could catch it unawares, slowly building up strength when he thought it hit its mark. But, again, it never did; not only did the bolt get reflected with another Extrasensory, it hit much closer, with embers from the thunderstrike barely grazing May's face and the electric potential forcing tiny strands of hair not held in place by her bandana to stand on end.

"Repeating the same move twice in a row? Far too predictable," Evergreen taunted. "Trap them with Fire Spin!"

Another wave of heat burst from Ho-Oh's mouth, then taking the form of an intimidating fire whirl. Its form, completely at the mercy of the updrafts and wind caused from the bird's hot aura, twisted and turned as it approached Pikachu and completely surrounded him. Panicked like the scared mouse he was, he could only stand in place and carefully eye the perimeter for any sort of opening he could slip through.

But there wasn't one. He was completely sealed off from the rest of the battlefield, the wall of flames too high to jump over and too hot to jump  _through_ without taking serious damage. The stage had been, effectively, cut down to one-tenth of its size.

_This is bad…_  May thought to herself, almost spitting through clenched teeth.  _Pikachu's a sitting duck in there!_

And as the seconds went on, the flames constricted and limited Pikachu's already-scant space further. The panicked look in his eyes only deepened, and he had little recourse but to either futilely run around in circles or to stand in place and consign himself to inevitable third-degree burns.

May had begun to panic, too. She even considered consulting Ash, assuming she had the time—but the flames were closing in quick, and the fact that he was strangely silent throughout the whole battle thus far appeared to suggest that he had probably fallen unconscious against the wall. And, of course, there was an even more obvious matter to recollect: She was supposed to be protecting  _him_. What kind of guardian could she be if she had to constantly lean on her dependent as if he were a crutch?

No, she had to depend on her own strength. She  _had_  to, it being a matter of reality or as simply a matter of pride mattering not. And so, May's brain ran as fast and as hard as it could to find something, anything, that could be  _some_  kind of solution. But, even so, as her synapses screamed along, only one coherent thought managed to pass through her mind like a broken record.

_What would Ash do?_

Surely the answer lay there. He had gotten himself out of sticky situations more times than she could count, and that wasn't even including all the battles that she had seen herself. Each time involved thinking outside the box in some way—using some sort of unorthodox choice of move on some odd target and somehow turning it into an advantage.

She had to forget all her biases.

Forget all preconceptions of what was in front of her.

She had to  _forget_.

As May cleared her mind, so, too, did the mental blocks holding her back slip away. Her fear had left her, and in its place was a calming zen, her focus acute. Images flashed through her eyes as she considered any sort of off-the-wall idea that she could conjure and predicted the outcome. One in particular stood out: Flames dying out from a torrent of water.

Without an easy access to Water-type attacks, or even time, it would have been rather difficult fulfilling that vision. Looking at the ground, however, perhaps she found the next best thing…

" _Pikachu!_ " she screamed at the top of her lungs. " _Slash at the ground with Iron Tail!_ "

He had little time to question her order, much less consider the outcome, but with his obedient instincts kicking in, he did as he was told. He focused energy into his tail until it flashed a grayish white, ran towards the rim of the wall of flame and unleashed a surge of strength toward the ground. A large cloud of dust and soil lifted into the air and impaired his vision before billowing back down. The heat of the flames, coupled with the dust particles, was choking, and he wanted to back away just as soon as he went in for even the slightest chance to feel cooler air.

But, oddly enough, after a couple seconds, some of the heat on his face began to dissipate. The flames that were flirting with his comfort zone had backed away, too-some, even, had disappeared completely.

And so Pikachu realized May's idea: The dirt and dust suffocated the flames and formed a firebreak.

He dashed through the opening in the fire, taking care to not get any residual dust in his eyes and lungs. As soon as he felt his fur fill with the soothing sensation of colder air, he took a gasp of oxygen and let the excess nerves flush through his system. He had escaped, and with nary a

scorch mark.

May jumped excitedly in celebration, which Pikachu mirrored, scarcely believing her quick thinking had worked so well. Perhaps Ash had been rubbing off on her, however much she considered it a shame that he wasn't awake to see it. Even so, it wasn't to last, as a moment later, her self-discipline—or was it, maybe, her survival instinct?—stayed her body from focusing too little on the enemy in front of them.

And so the battle had returned to a neutral state. Both sides took turns staring at each other, twitching their eyes waiting for their opponent to overcommit and make a mistake. May learned from hers, and so she elected to not make any sudden movements or to poke. This gave her some time to observe and consider her options, but she was none too happy with her lack of ideas.

_If I try another Thunderbolt, he's just going to reflect it back at us_ , she thought.  _Getting too close is also risky...but there's no way around it. If we want to win, we'll need to defeat that Ho-Oh, or to turn it against "Evergreen." To do that, we'll need to find that device and destroy it, just like the others._

The problem, though, was actually getting close enough to even think of destroying it. There was no telling what would happen: Getting fried with another Sacred Fire, but at point-blank range; getting thrown about like a ragdoll with Extrasensory… For all she knew, there was some other attack that he had not yet revealed. What if it could kill them all with a single hit?

_And with Pikachu being the only target on the field, there's no way we'll get close enough without having to dodge hellfire left and right…_

Then it hit her. " _Only target"? That's it!_

All that time, she was operating under the assumption that the Battle Fortress, as cruel as it was, still operated under a series of rules, like any other Facility. For a good portion of the ascent, that was the case, despite the obvious loopholes. But now, she had to face what was essentially a brainwashed demigod, and this was after having to fight a brainwashed Ash and Charizard, too.

It was fair to say that there was no longer any point in playing fair. Evergreen didn't deserve it.

She reached for one of her own Poké Balls and threw it out into the field. " _Blaziken, take the stage!"_

A bright-orange humanoid shape materialized next to Pikachu, the white light from the ball melding with the hot flames and concocting a bright golden glow at their feet. Her evolved starter Pokémon had already entered her default battle stance, as though prepared to take up the call. She and Pikachu looked at each other for a moment and nodded in allegiance before turning to face their mutual foe. The solace in the fact he had backup forced a sigh of relief from Pikachu's lungs and a surge of electricity from his cheeks, renewed vigor incarnate.

Evergreen, realizing the breach in the implicit contract, shook his head in disapproval. "Resorting to a two-versus-one, huh? Can't say I didn't expect this, but I must say, it's still disappointing. Are you so incapable to face me  _mano a mano_  that you so quickly fall back to a man advantage?"

So sayeth the man cowering behind his bodyguard, was what May wanted to spit back, had the scorching air not left her mouth dry—left unsaid, even, the lack of desire to give him the time of day.

Unable to read the room, or perhaps merely unwilling, he pressed on. "I mean, by all means, if you're going to go this far, why stop here? Why not summon the rest of your Pokémon if you're so determined to brute-force your way out?"

She was tempted to, but she knew it was a bad idea. It wasn't that she  _couldn't_  send out Skitty or even Beautifly as well, and maybe for a moment it would have given her more of the strength she needed to breach through the wall of attacks—were it not for her refusal to think of her Pokémon as mere reserves.

Moreover, it was hard enough for her to control two Pokémon at once.  _Twice_  that would be far beyond her ability to command in any organized manner. Ho-Oh would have certainly taken advantage of the sheer logistics required for her to order around four Pokémon simultaneously and possibly, even, take them down in one fell swoop.

She suspected that Evergreen was well aware of this fact, too, of course—and she wasn't going to fall for it.

Finally, he sighed when it was clear she wouldn't take the bait. "All right, then. Far be it for me to dictate your funeral when I'm just a simple griever."

Without giving her much time to respond, he commanded Ho-Oh to, once again, unleash another Sacred Fire at their position. As the attack wound up, May ordered both Pikachu and Blaziken to rush toward it but split up so as to not get picked off. With a puff of breath, they did what they were told and dashed ahead but took care, in the meanwhile, to maintain significant distance between each other.

The shot of flame eventually built up to its full strength and got launched forward. Ho-Oh—or, rather, the one controlling it—couldn't be sure which was to be the main target if it couldn't get both, so instead of aiming for one opponent in particular, it instead thought it better to aim it directly in the space between them and let the ensuing explosion take care of the rest. The fireball, lobbed from its beak at a mortar-like speed, hit the ground at the intended spot. A bright flash of light and a loud  _BANG_  crashed into existence as expected at the point of impact.

Only two things remained after the blast: Blaziken and a miniature mushroom cloud, the latter of which dissipated not long after and the former of which was far enough away to take minimal splash damage. Pikachu, on the other hand, was too close to the blast and had been launched sideways. May had feared for a moment after the lack of movement that he had been defeated in one shot like Eevee had been before, but after he shook off the dust in his coat and spat out the soil that he had swallowed, she wiped the nervous sweat from her brow and continued breathing.

Since they were okay, May felt it was high time to get back on the offensive. "Blaziken, use Flamethrower!"

She could almost hear Evergreen chuckling in her ear. "Choosing a Fire-type attack against a Fire-type opponent? What an amateur," she imagined him say to her. She knew that it wasn't type advantageous, especially with the Extrasensory ushering the flames away in an arc back towards its caster.

It mattered little to her regardless, because dealing damage wasn't her goal.

"And now, Pikachu, go in for a Volt Tackle!"

Pikachu was eager, perhaps a tad too eager, to comply. His rage bubbled into a flare of sparks that completely enveloped his being. He dashed faster and faster through the floating embers, his paws beginning to burn from the rising friction.

" _Pikapikapikapikapikapika—!"_

The Ho-Oh was still reeling from the recoil and the empty sensation of sapped strength, too distracted to notice the yellow meteor hurling straight at it from below. With a strong kick, Pikachu leapt off the ground and let his momentum carry him upward like a speeding car flying off a ramp. He cruised skyward at a speed not unlike that of a kite caught in a gale, and soon, the only visible light to those on the ground was a golden ray careening closer and closer to the large bird.

The collision that mattered followed not long after.

Electricity surged through both combatants at an intensity that rivaled that of a sunrise or a violent storm. Either through momentum or electromagnetism, both Pokémon stayed suspended in the air as the energy released outward and struck almost anything in sight. May took a few steps back in fear that she would have been struck by a stray bolt herself if she wasn't careful, as well as to help keep her from being blinded by the flash.

Soon, the neon sign that was the Ho-Oh faded to nothing, and then the only light left was the odd ember from Blaziken's redirected Flamethrower that still hadn't been extinguished. Both it and Pikachu were still in the air, as though time had stopped. May let out a few gasps of air when she realized that she had, once again, been holding her breath in anticipation—the only evidence she had that the clock was, in fact, still ticking.

But then from a distance, she heard a faint, " _Pika…"_  followed by a small yellow body falling to the ground like a stuffed animal. May's heart sank, and she could no longer regain her breath.

She called out to him with the little air she had left in her lungs, not caring if the gesture was futile or not—although, evidently, it had been, as Pikachu's body eventually hit the mix of dust and glass in a heap, unmoving.

"No, Pikachu…!" she whispered, the unsettling feeling of despair closing in around her. It was short-lived, fortunately, when she saw his tiny form begin to stir, slow as it was. Dust and soot accumulated onto his fur after the impact and evoked the peculiar impression that he had been thrown through a volcanic eruption in progress, but besides that, he pushed himself up like nothing had happened.

At least, that's what she would have said to herself, were it not for his swaying and missed step, forcing him onto the ground once more.

The attack had to have done more damage than she had anticipated, she thought to herself. It was a risky move, to be sure, but little did she think that it would have done more damage to him than to the Ho-Oh. The latter, incidentally, was barely fazed; its eyes were still hollow and devoid of any semblance of agency, but there had been no sign of weakness, either.

May growled in frustration. "It's like we didn't even put a dent in him. Now what can we do?"

Throwing out another Volt Tackle would have been a very dodgy choice, for obvious reasons. Not only would it have been another textbook example of telegraphing on her part, there was no telling if Pikachu could even use another one without taking serious damage or fainting altogether.

Evergreen seized the opportunity to quip over her grumbles. "What can you do, indeed? If that's all the ideas you have left, then maybe you should take my advice after all. Go ahead. Just send out another one of your Pokémon."

May paused for a moment to apprehensively reconsider his offer. She still wasn't any more confident that she could command more than two Pokémon at a time, but the lack of firepower on her side was undeniable. She instinctively reached for her Beautifly's Poké Ball and almost began a throwing motion to bring her out to the field, but her discipline caught her at the last second.

_No. I'm not going to fall for his tricks_.

She shook her head to shake off the feeling of temptation and revisited her strategy while giving Blaziken a command to dodge to the right to avoid a supereffective Extrasensory. She soon came to the conclusion that, if she wanted to get to the device controlling the Ho-Oh, like with Charizard before, it was only a matter of getting around to the back of its neck. The only question that remained was how she'd even be able to close the distance safely enough to get a clear shot.

And then she got an idea—a crazy idea.

"Blaziken, use Blaze Kick on Pikachu! Pikachu, run between Ho-Oh and Blaziken and use Iron Tail on the Blaze Kick!"

Both Pokémon simply gawked at her with their mouths ajar. Their opponent was just as nonplussed, to the point where the mere suggestion elicited laughter that was audible across the field. May held firm, however, and confidently repeated herself.

The two Pokémon looked at each other hesitantly, but their fears were slightly relieved from the force of her determination. Blaziken, as instructed, built up a strong flame in her leg, while Pikachu, though reluctant, rushed at it with as much speed as he himself could gain, all the while building a charge in his tail in kind. When the two were within a couple meters of each other, Pikachu lunged and twisted around to maximize the torque in his tail, while a hot gust of wind blasted outward as Blaziken unleashed her attack.

It was though a loud gong had been struck, and the sound reverberated in May's ears and shook the loose shards of glass beneath her feet. The low, bass-filled note hung in the air and started spawning a headache; and so she brought her hands to her temples to try to numb the pain or to at least distract her from it so she could concentrate on the yellow blur headed straight for the Ho-Oh.

It was somewhat hard to see—not much different than if a baseball were flying out of a ballpark—but it looked like it was working. Pikachu was flying straight for Ho-Oh's chest at a breakneck speed. Evergreen, as observant as he was, noticed the gambit and commanded the Pokémon to release yet another Extrasensory.

Just as planned.

"Now, Blaziken, use Flamethrower on Ho-Oh!"

A stream of fire shot out of Blaziken's beak once more, and then Evergreen realized he had been looking down not one but two gun barrels, both of which had fired at roughly a couple seconds apart. And so, there was but a moment to make a decision: Would it use Extrasensory on Pikachu? Or the Flamethrower?

The former was closer, but the latter was traveling at twice the speed and at its eyes, all but assuring that both would hit it simultaneously if swift action wasn't taken. It figured the Flamethrower would have done more damage to such a sensitive area or unnecessarily cripple its senses than an electric mouse would, so there wasn't much to its calculus beyond redirecting the shot of flame away from its head at any cost.

A purple aura enveloped the attack and safely guided it to the side, where it harmlessly struck a wall. In exchange, Ho-Oh had to completely ignore Pikachu, who landed in its chest feathers and grappled on for dear life. Little time did he have to even make sure that he had a solid grip, and as envious as he was of himself in any alternate reality where it didn't feel like the rainbow-esque down was going to slip through his paws, he had to crawl as quickly as he could up to its neck just the same.

After a few seconds, Pikachu wrapped himself around onto its back much like he did with Charizard minutes before, and sure enough, the immediately recognizable hairclip-like device stared at him dead in the face. This was his chance; he didn't bother spending precious time to hear May's command before acting, since it was all too likely that the rest of the strategy was the same as before anyway.

He continued crawling up to the device, charged up energy in his tail, and then swung down with all his might onto the dark metal. This device was just as brittle as the last, as it easily disintegrated with an oddly satisfying  _crunch_. Shards of metal and wire rolled down the bird's plumes before gently landing in the sand below. But something was different this time: Instead of plopping onto the ground, sound asleep, Ho-Oh screeched in pain, its vision dimming but, nevertheless, no less enraged and focused on them.

Perhaps it would have been too much to expect a Pokémon like Ho-Oh to succumb so easily to mental exhaustion after being under the influence of such a device like the others. May certainly didn't expect the contrary herself. She had hoped and even anticipated that the battle would have ended then and there so she could finally answer the call of her body screaming at her for rest and relaxation. Plus, after all, worse than a mind-controlled demigod attacking them was one that was engulfed in fury.

Fortunately, it was still reeling from the realization of what exactly had happened, and May still had one more trick up her sleeve. It was finally time to give that particular move a test drive.

Before Ho-Oh got its bearings again, she ordered Pikachu to jump off and get out of the way before putting her attention back to her own Pokémon. " _And now, Blaziken, finish it off with Blast Burn!"_  And then, all she could do was cross her fingers as she saw a familiar sight unfold in front of her and see if the end result would diverge from the last.

Blaziken's mouth opened, and in the empty space had a white-hot ball of bright-orange flames begun to form. It grew and grew until it was the size of a gumball, and then the size of a Poké Ball, until, finally, it was the size of a volleyball. Her head lurched forward not dissimilar to a shotgun recoiling in reverse, and the ball of flame shot forward like a bullet of steel-melting plasma, once again toward the Ho-Oh's eyes.

In the split second between the shot and the impact, a part of May twinged in fear that it would peter out before it reached its target, like it had the last time she had seen Blaziken attempt to use the move, but to her eventual relief, it never did. Fear turned to panic turned to ecstacy when a hot blast of bright red flashed in front of her where Ho-Oh had lingered. The smell of sulfur filled the air to mix with the amalgam of embers and burning feathers, and the screech of an avian monster that had lost its will to remain standing pierced her ears.

Soon, the embers and feathers were replaced with a whirlwind of dust, as the Pokémon had landed face-first into the ground. She and Blaziken covered their mouths in a futile effort to keep their throats clear, taking the moment to cough and breathe whatever little clean air was left around them while they waited for the dust to settle. The intimidating Ho-Oh brimming with bellicose energy had become, in its place, a disheveled, unconscious beast—feathers scorched and ruffled, eyes clamped shut, and breathing the only sign of movement.

From there, it was clear: It had been defeated.

The moment she realized that they were all still alive and no longer in peril of roasting on a spit felt almost like an eternity for her. The feeling was odd yet similar enough to the sensation of adrenaline beginning to drain from one's system after an obvious danger had passed. Her fingers were tingling, her breath had shortened, and dizziness nearly brought her to her knees. The particulars weren't exactly pleasant, but she figured that it was probably far preferable to the alternative.

"Is everyone okay?" she eventually asked as soon as she was sure the dizziness wouldn't turn to nausea. Blaziken answered in the affirmative immediately, somewhat exhausted in the aftermath of the Blast Burn but otherwise still fighting fit. Pikachu, besides his fur being slightly singed from the splash damage before, was in a similar state, and he happily chimed in response, as well.

From the other side, a man had been looking down at what seemed to him a pitiful sight and shook his head in disgust at the camaraderie—but was, at the same time, partially impressed with her performance. She, a girl who fancied herself only in style and was, charitably speaking, an also-ran in the art of Pokémon combat, had bested  _him_. His plan was  _ruined_  because of this girl's tenacity.

Well, no, not just that. She did have help from a motley band of friends and ne'er-do-wells alike. Especially regarding the latter, perhaps he was too hasty in his anger to discharge three longtime members from his ranks. Had he stayed his hand but a moment, she would have been a group short from reaching the facility's summit. Alas, in the end, he only had himself to blame. One could say, then, from a certain point of view, the only one to have truly dismantled his ambitions was the man in the suit all along.

"Congratulations, May," he said over the cheering and patting of backs, his spirit defeated. "Surely, you are the true Champion of the Battle Fortress."

May took a moment to stop herself from celebrating to address Evergreen properly. From where she was standing, he looked anything but the unhinged man from before. The uncontrollable rage and lack of decorum that brought her fear and anxiety had withered into what seemed like apathy, and it was that impression that had given her pause. "So, is that it? It's over?"

"It's over," he replied, his voice low and weary.

"No strings attached?"

"None whatsoever."

May let out what must have been her twelfth sigh of relief that day, with Blaziken and Pikachu following suit. It seemed like a far-off dream where she could just rest and not have to worry about anything and simply leave the heroics to others. The glimmer of light at the end of that long, dark tunnel filled with near-death was almost bright enough to bring a tear to her eye.

"So, then," May said after realizing she had dwelled on the idea of beaches and bedrest for so long that she feared Evergreen was about to topple over and fall asleep, "what now? Are you going to run away?"

He thought about it for a moment. He admittedly hadn't given it much thought before, let alone prepare for the possibility he would have been on the receiving end of a defeat. The very idea just seemed asinine to him, like a rifleman losing to a man armed with only his fists. But these were truly extraordinary circumstances, and with all of his other options exhausted, there was little recourse he could take.

"I  _could_ do that," he finally said after about a minute of pondering. "I have the resources to quit while I'm ahead and spend the rest of my days inoffensively, out of the public eye. If I wanted, I could spend the rest of my days on an island somewhere and lay low until Team Rocket rose to global influence once again.

"But I'm not going to do that," he revealed, prompting a gasp of surprise from the others. "Do you know the reality of the legally-gray world, May?"

She shook her head, not quite understanding where he was headed.

"Not surprising, considering your meager age. Young people seem to cling to the fantasy that organizations like Team Rocket rise out of a vacuum—that unscrupulous men and women get together as if to say, 'Hello, friends and neighbors, let us do evil together!'—without realizing that half of the work done comes in the form of forming relationships and favors outside of the organization. Each member rises and falls depending on the value and goodwill they contribute.

"And that willingness to do favors for another is like a special currency. To do all of what you've seen, I had to spend so much of it that no doubt that the entire Kanto region knows about what's transpired here and the failure to get any results. And so, all that goodwill we've amassed has now run dry."

May jolted when she felt herself begin to succumb to her exhaustion and nod off from Evergreen's sob story.  _Get to the point, man…_  she thought, trying to tap her foot to keep herself awake.

"Your actions this week have made us high profile, and surely no longer will key figures risk working with us by proxy without their own reputations falling from the heightened scrutiny. In fact, perhaps their reputations are already doomed. Expect corporations to fall, politicians to be recalled, private citizens to be arrested, and the authorities to comb the earth for those directly responsible. And all because of what you did."

May rolled her eyes. She couldn't give much of a damn of what misfortune would fall upon those people after they themselves gave so little of it to others. Shouldering the blame was almost a badge of honor she wished she could cut out and paste onto her ribbon case.

"So to answer your question, no, I won't run—because there's nowhere  _to_  run now, and I refuse to live as a fugitive." Feeling his story complete, and knowing that more of an explanation would only put May to sleep, he took out what she guessed to be the same remote control device from before and pressed another button. A loud buzzer immediately filled the room, startling May and waking her up instantly, but all that resulted from it was the low guttural rumble from the doors opening from behind.

Alert, she spun around once again to face the Team Rocket leader, concerned. "Don't you worry yourself," Evergreen assured her. "I figured you just want to see your comrades again."

The gesture surprised May, honestly, but she wasn't going to complain or question it, given his recent speech. In her haste, she almost turned back around and dashed out the door to meet her companions midway, but she stopped herself when she realized that she still couldn't quite trust Evergreen's intentions. For all she knew, he was just trying to lull her into a false sense of security, only to escape with her eyes turned away.

So, in lieu of rushing out, she resolved herself to stay. It would only be a few more moments. She could wait. And fortunately, she didn't have to wait long: Mere minutes after the door had opened did she pick up the faint, distant sound of footsteps clanking on metal, which grew louder and louder until, finally, she could make out the visage of Greta and Anabel rising from below. Anabel's face brightened—Greta's face, relieved—when the two made eye contact for what felt like weeks.

Their jaws dropped, amusingly enough from May's perspective, when they saw the heaping mass of the unconscious Ho-Oh behind lying behind her.

"Oish, what happened here?" Greta exclaimed with wide eyes. "Did we miss a clash of titans here or what?"

"I could say the same about you guys," May responded between fits of laughter. "How'd it go in there?"

"We thrashed 'em!" Greta exclaimed, sending her fist into her palm through a manic grin. "Serves that prissy fop right, I say."

"You mean  _after_ you ran up to him and punched him in the face when he knocked out your last Pokémon, right?" Anabel asked wryly.

"S-shut up, Annie!" she cried in protest, her face flushed with embarrassment. "He still deserved it!"

May's fits of laughter continued as the other girls bickered playfully amongst themselves. It was almost like they never left—or, rather, like  _she_  never left. As much as she wanted to enjoy their company after such a grueling fight, however, she knew they had to get back on track. "So where are Tucker and Brandon, anyway?"

Anabel took a moment to ignore the objections of her colleague to turn her attention to May. "So, after we did win, we figured it would have been better if we could keep an eye on them to make sure they didn't get away. Tucker was already out cold, needless to say"—Greta, still clearly proud of herself, snickered loudly, which Anabel ignored—"but after the doors opened up, we took it upon ourselves to simply knock Brandon out, too. They're still on the floor below us, sleeping like babies."

Well, cool, May thought to herself. That was one less thing for her to worry about but still left a handful of others. "Have you seen everyone else?"

Anabel shook her head. "We wanted to make sure you were okay first." Sensing that the other girl was becoming consumed with worry, she smiled and gave her an assuring pat on the shoulder. "Don't sweat it, though. I'm sure the others made it out fine, as well."

"Yeah, May, don't sweat it!" said a high-pitched, girly voice behind them, and soon afterward, the forms of both Brock and Cyndi ascended the stairs and rushed up to greet them.

"Brock, Cyndi, you're all right!" May exclaimed, trying as hard as she could not to tackle them with a hug.

Just as enthusiastic, Brock gave her a supportive thumbs-up. "Of course we are. We weren't going to go down without a fight." After he gave his justification for staying behind, May had honestly feared that him going down was a not-too-remote possibility, regardless of his post hoc assurances to the contrary. "It was a close, tough match; but we won out in the end."

"She was so crazy she was sloppy," Cyndi chimed in. "You had that battle in the bag!"

He laughed, still somewhat at his own expense despite the praise. "Fair enough. But I'm sure she still would have done better if she were in a better mental state. Fact is, that battle must've been the straw that broke the camel's back, since she just fell to her knees in silence after we landed the final blow."

"Oh, is Lucy still there now?" May asked.

"Probably. She didn't move an inch afterward, let alone say a word."

"I wanted to knock the lights out of her myself after Brock won just to keep her from running away," the younger girl added, "but Brock said  _nooo_. It's stupid..." May had to respect her tenacity, but she was glad that Brock was there to put a check on it before things got even more out of hand.

And then, another voice followed: "What's stupid? No one's preparing for trouble without us, are they?"

And then a second: "If they are, we'll just go ahead and make it double."

May's eyes widened as the sight of three more figures walked up the stairs to greet them, and she couldn't help but smile as if to say, "Typical," but she didn't have the heart to vocalize it and could only giggle and extend her feelings of relief of their well-being.

"Of course we're okay!" Meowth said with high spirits. "You didn't think we'd have had our hams handed to us by that painful pair of palookas, did ya?"

May was impressed. "So you won?" The thought was so surprising that she was honestly a little bit sad that she wasn't able to see it.

"We came, we saw, we conquered!" James answered with a determined fist pump.

Jessie followed with a mirrored fist bump of her own. "And we had a lead so commanding it left them speechless versus our expert strategy and sharp wit!"

"Uh, Jess, all you did was call Cassidy's hair a greasy wig."

She stomped her feet in protest. "Oh, be quiet, James! I've waited  _eleven years_  to beat her and say that to her face, and you're not going to ruin this moment for me!"

May was about to try to change the subject when she realized that Meowth had slipped behind them and exclaimed, " _Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold the phone! What happened here!?_ "

Everyone turned their attention to the aftermath of the battle against Evergreen and marveled at the shattered glass littering the floor and the still-unconscious Ho-Oh lying at the end.

"Did the Twoipette actually punch out a Legendary Pokémon by herself!? What kind of power have you been hiding all this time?"

May didn't really have the confidence to answer that question, especially since it wasn't just her Pokémon that did the job. So, all she could really do was give a modest shrug and say nothing, leaving it up to the others' imagination of whether or not her girlish charm had, in fact, belied the force of a typhoon.

"And, wait a moment," James said, "If the Twerpette's here, where's the Twerp?"

Everyone looked around for a moment before spotting what looked to be Ash's corpse lying in the corner a ways from the field of glass and scorch marks and rushed over to him, dreading the worst. May had assured the others that, no, he wasn't dead and was actually just in a deep sleep, but the rest still saw fit to check his pulse just to make sure. And sure enough, he was still resting soundly, if somewhat pained.

Anabel and Cyndi caught onto his condition especially quickly. "These symptoms look familiar," said the former. "Was he being controlled psychically?"

"Surely you know the answer to that one, Anabel," Evergreen's voice said from behind them, spurring everyone to defensively spin on a dime and, in Greta's case, enter a defensive stance. "Don't look so surprised. I'm still here."

"Boss!" the Team Rocket Trio shouted in surprise. It wasn't often that they got to see him face to face without any sort of screen protecting them from his wrath, although their surprise didn't connote a feeling of fear or even sympathy. Instead, it surprised the others to see, the sight of him had saddened them or inflamed what was a once-dormant feeling of frustration. And now, in the brighter lighting, they could see him for what he really was—a man who had given up on them and the rest of Team Rocket, and their scorn was all-too apparent to the rest.

"Buffoons," he addressed in kind with a scowl. "It certainly is bittersweet, seeing you again."

The glares from the trio didn't cease, and Meowth was having a difficult time staying his claw from ruining his suit. They turned their backs on him as if to clear from their minds the image of the man who had sacked them and the feeling of conflict in their hearts that coaxed them back to his side.

"You refuse even to give me the time of day? You wound me."

"You insult  _us_  for thinking we'd give it to you after what you did to us!" Meowth snarled with a ferocity that took even Jessie and James aback, although they still looked away. "Sorry to boist your bubble,  _sir_ , but I, for one, refuse to crawl back to you!"

"Is that so? And you think you have a place with  _them_? The ones you've been harrassing for years at my behest?"

Meowth faltered, unsure himself. He was right that they probably had nowhere to go outside of Team Rocket. There was probably little chance the Twerps would let them tag along after all that's happened over the years, let alone just in the past week or so, and the thought of living as wanderers was hardly a pleasant one. Perhaps it was their lot in life to perpetually belong nowhere.

"They do," May countered over the feeling of doubt that had clouded the trio. They turned to face her, and she had to admit that the resolve to defend them sort of came out of nowhere. "Okay, yes, they did do horrible things to us and many other people in the past. Yes, they spent most of their careers failing to catch Pikachu. And yes, they did almost kill me…"

"Okay, Twerpette, we get the picture…" Jessie said under her breath, but May ignored her.

"But if the past couple days have told me anything, it's that they're determined to turn over a new leaf. Why should I deny them that opportunity if they truly want to change?"

"And what makes you think they're even telling the truth? You'd take former employees of mine at their word? Especially when they've betrayed you before?"

"I mean, he's got a point…" James whispered to himself, only for Jessie to smack him in the back of the head in irritation. May, once again, ignored them.

"Maybe you're right. But maybe you're wrong, too. The way I see it, they'll be less likely to go back to a life of crime if they at least have support from people they know. So I'll take that risk. If I'm right, then that means there are three fewer people working for  _you_."

Evergreen said nothing in response. Little on his face indicated whether or not he truly had nothing left to say or if he simply just didn't care enough to continue. Regardless, having the opportunity to shut his smug attitude down was a simple enough pleasure to partake in, and the effect that it had on the (former) Team Rocket trio couldn't be denied. Tears flowed down their cheeks as they sobbed, touched at May's compassion.

" _Oh, Twerpette!"_  they cheered in unison, the waterworks practically spraying everywhere. " _How can we ever repay youuuuuuu?"_

May was about to playfully answer with something cheeky like, oh, say, a million bucks and then laugh at their inevitable panicked shock; but before she could, she was interrupted by the sound of stirring behind her. Her heart began beating faster when she spun around to see Ash turning himself onto his back and staring up at the ceiling, eyes half open.

"Ash, you're awake!" she exclaimed, rushing over to him to offer her hand. "Can you get up this time?"

"Y-yeah, I think so." He took her hand with a smile and jolted up to his feet. Like before, he had trouble keeping his balance, but fortunately, May was there to give him physical support, which he certainly wasn't going to object to. He enjoyed the softness of her touch, perhaps a little too much, because after a while, an impatient cough from one of the others—most likely Cyndi—snapped him out of the fantasy that the two were the only ones left in the room.

"Oh, everyone!" he said in embarrassed surprise. "When did you get here?"

"Not too long ago," Brock replied, happy to see that he was okay. "Welcome back, bud."

Ash did his best to flash another one of his smiles back at him, but it was cut short when a migraine flash struck him in the head like a rock. He held his hand up to his temple and cried in pain, almost forgetting once more that anybody else was even there.

Anabel took the opportunity to rush to his side and place her hand on his forehead. It was cool and sweaty, doubtless due to the heat from the previous battle. It also confirmed her previous suspicions that he was mind controlled recently, and the symptoms that resulted from it were all-too apparent.

"Just as I thought," she said out loud. "You're going to need plenty of rest, Ash."

"Yeah, I guess so," he agreed. The pain from that particular headache attack didn't last too long that time, to his delight, but almost like clockwork, a low grumble came from his stomach, which he cupped gingerly with a reddened face.

"Heh, I guess I'm a little hungry, too."

"Then we'll be sure to give you a meal fit for a king. But until then..." May said, followed soon after by letting go of Ash's hand and playfully pushing him away from her, to his confusion. "Let's make our way back to the Pokémon Center—because you  _reek_."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy crud, the final battle is finally over! Huzzah! I honestly can't believe we've finally gotten this far after all these years. Very soon, we'll get freakin' closure already, and it only took about three generations of Pokémon (four, if you include Sword and Shield this year) to get there!
> 
> Now, assuming there's no epilogue, expect Chapter 41 to be the final chapter in the whole saga. There are a few loose ends to tie up that I'd like to see if I can take a wild stab at resolving, and from there, there's the sweet, sweet character interactions that we've been starved for, for the past decade. So, the final chapter may take a while to get right, but at least it won't be due to another battle. Rest assured that I am done writing battles for this.
> 
> We're in the home stretch, guys. Stay tuned for what is most likely going to be the final chapter. Until then, get Pokémon!


End file.
